"Oh, so that's how you express your feelings for him," Hagrid said, with a play of his eyebrows. "Wanting to get closer, are we?"
Both young men shot to their feet as though stung.
"I didn't—" they exclaimed in unison.
"How remarkably in sync," Hagrid smiled, making no effort to conceal his amusement. "And for once—a shared opinion. Hmm. Now what could that mean? Ladies, would you mind keeping an eye on them?"
"How dare you—"
"A joke, Lady Black, only a joke," Andrei raised both palms.
"Though if they haven't found themselves partners in five years, we'll simply marry them to each other," Walburga said, coldly.
"Mother!"
"Lady Black!"
At that moment Sirius and Severus looked very nearly like twins. Or like large fish hauled out of the water, because after their respective exclamations they both simultaneously lost the power of speech, mouths opening and closing in unison. Regulus and Remus stared, equally unable to produce any sound—only Hagrid was smiling.
"I happen to have a woman asleep at my house," Snape announced, unexpectedly cheerful, the first to recover. "I've compromised her reputation, which means I'm obliged, as a man of honour, to marry her."
"Jorkins?" Regulus said, coming round enough to snicker. "Think again! You'd hang yourself within a week."
"Whereas with him—" Severus looked at his long-standing enemy—"I'd be poisoned. Or would poison him, then turn myself in and spend the rest of my days in Azkaban. Assuming, of course, that the lady—" he bowed in Walburga's direction—"didn't intercept me first."
"In that case it's the end of the kitten—they'd arrive with nothing but his ears," Andrei offered, and Lady Black nodded approvingly.
"I'll—I'm going to—"
"What's that, Sirius? You're going to do what to Snape?"
"Loathe him. Completely."
"Didn't eat enough porridge," Walburga sighed. "Or… Snape, what exactly were you sending to our kitchen? Come on, confess."
"Well… the blend was slightly different. With the addition of goat's milk—Aberforth keeps fresh stock…"
"Goat's milk?!" the lady erupted, leaving Snape no option but an ignominious retreat into the fireplace and away to the Prince manor.
Regulus bolted after him—presumably to stop his friend making a fatal error—and Hagrid followed both of them—he felt it was right, after all, that Snape do the explaining to Jorkins himself.
Sirius Black didn't deliberate long. In the end, it was he who'd brought the guest to Snape's in the first place! And while he was at it, he could introduce her to the Potions master on the spot, explain everything, and save everyone the trip.
Lupin dove after his friend like a fish—there was no staying alone with Lady Black! She put considerable fear into the young werewolf, and more than once. Run, run! And perhaps he'd be useful there. Jorkins had been in her final year when he was made Prefect… He'd become rather good at smoothing things over, in those days.
The only witness to Walburga Black's unusually tender expression was the green flame slowly dying in the fireplace. No, she wasn't ready to show that to anyone—but what Hagrid had told her at the very beginning, about her and her family, she hadn't forgotten for a single moment. And she felt it in her whole being—a little more, just a little, and all of it could have come true. And she would have been a portrait of a shrill, spiteful harridan on the wall. Forever. Or until the house fell. Which would have been a long time. A very long time. Though she'd probably have gone mad within a few months—she wasn't as resilient as all that.
That was why Hagrid—whoever he really was—would always find support, a table, and a roof at her house. And that was more than just a life debt. Much more. And yes—she knew this curse perfectly well. The Blacks, having cast it once, had never lifted it. Often because there was no one left to lift it from. But she would manage this time. Though Orion and Crouch had crossed paths fairly regularly—to their mutual dissatisfaction, to put it mildly. Still, apart from Orion, no one else came to mind. Not Alphard, surely! Though it made no difference.
And she went to her husband's study—a room she hadn't entered in a very, very long time. Not since his death, practically.
* * *
Bertha Jorkins, waking alone in an unfamiliar room, had a brief moment of panic—but when she looked herself over carefully and found that neither her hair nor her clothes had suffered in any way, magically or otherwise, she felt somewhat better. Whoever her abductor was, he appeared to be a gentleman. But who would want her? The answer was probably someone trying to get to her boss. And her first thought was Polyjuice—she certainly wouldn't have noticed the absence of a few hairs from her not-exactly-luxuriant head.
But today was Sunday, wasn't it? So why now? She furrowed her thin brows. How long had she been asleep?
"Does miss wish for breakfast in bed?" a small voice said from the doorway.
Is he even wealthy enough for that? Jorkins thought—somehow quite certain her abductor was a man. So this is serious. What on earth am I going to be offered, and what should I do?
"Does miss wish for breakfast?" the house-elf repeated in a squeak.
Well, can't I at least have some compensation?
"She does," she nodded, and shortly found herself sitting up in a cosy bed among pillows, leaning against a neatly laid breakfast tray.
Porridge. Some compensation. Is the owner one of those health enthusiasts?
But the elf brought another tray—this one with small cakes and what looked like jam or preserves.
"Is there any butter?" she asked.
Might as well be bold about it.
"One moment, miss…"
Should I ask for eggs? No, I couldn't manage all that. Or… just take a bite of everything? Bertha chuckled at the odd thought and dismissed it. Compared to her abduction, such petty revenge seemed beneath contempt—not even funny.
She had finished breakfast and was fully presentable when she heard sounds in the corridor and reached for her wand. Of course, against a powerful well-bred wizard in his own home she'd be outmatched—but at least…
What "at least" she didn't finish thinking—she didn't have time. There was a knock at the door, she answered, and in the doorway appeared a vaguely familiar young man, tall, dark-eyed, and behind him—Bertha didn't even have time to feel afraid before her room was filling up with four rather attractive young men and Rubeus Hagrid. Somehow, oddly, the appearance of the school gamekeeper was strangely reassuring. Apparently from her school days she'd never been able to perceive him as dangerous—she and her friends had laughed too often at his manner of speaking, and besides…
In the end the young men confessed, returned her memories, and told her everything quite openly—including what they wanted with Mr Crouch, and they even offered assistance with his problems. And when Hagrid began to speak… If Snape's potions were that effective, that was—that was simply extraordinary. No other words for it. And then, when a slightly thinned but still beautiful head of hair bent over her hand—she couldn't have failed to recognise Sirius Black! How much does a lonely, still-quite-young woman need to simply melt?
Less than half an hour later Bertha was wholly and entirely on the side of these charming young men. Oh, and the half-giant, naturally.
Severus watched with puzzlement as his adversary charmed Miss Jorkins and began, apparently, to understand something. And no—he would absolutely not be interfering. Because if Sirius Black got married, he, Severus, would be safe. At least for some time. No, rather than starting a family, he'd set himself a far more interesting and decidedly more useful goal. Becoming a Potions Magister, for instance.
If he recalled correctly, one needed to present no fewer than a dozen original developments? Excellent—he already had several potions that should work on giants. Worth testing on actual specimens at some point. Though "Unicorn Milk" he had absolutely no intention of making public. The moment word got out, every wizard in Britain would come looking, they'd start trekking to the spring, they'd try to exploit Ninochka—and the dryad would certainly not thank him for that. Or she would, but in her own particular way, and he was already familiar with her particular kind of humour. Still—so much work ahead! And he smiled—a happy, anticipatory smile.
His misfortune was that Bertha saw him at precisely that moment, and her heart took off on its own. Snape had changed so remarkably! She recognised him now, certainly—but where was the ugly duckling she remembered from school? And that smile…
Right. She would do everything in her power to bring him and her boss together—everything, just to make him feel some degree of gratitude. Oh, if only she could find a way into that circle. The Black brothers. Snape, a Potions Master. Perhaps she could make herself not merely useful, but actually liked by one of them? Merlin, she'd even lose weight for that—not with charms, but properly! And perhaps she could charm that quiet former prefect, if all else failed? A modest husband—now there's a fairy tale. A dream!
Needless to say, an approach to Mr Crouch was found very soon indeed.
* * *
After Snape's modified Strengthening Solution, combined with a strict diet of the well-known porridge, Mrs Crouch improved noticeably—and as a result, her husband thawed. He naturally tasted personally everything delivered to his wife at first—she mentioned it to Snape herself, rather unexpectedly.
"What devotion!" Hagrid exclaimed.
"What stupidity," Snape and Lady Black replied almost in unison, and Severus added: "If we had wanted to influence Crouch, here's the perfect route. And who would help him if he took ill? The house-elf?"
"That was sarcasm, actually," Andrei noted. "Though—it's not as though we're not influencing him for our own purposes right now."
"While simultaneously saving his family," Regulus added. "All things considered, that's rather decent. Reasonably honest and beneficial to everyone."
"Has Malfoy finally signed the contract?" Snape asked.
"Yes—the final version."
"May I see it?"
They looked at each other, and seemed to remember that particular day together…
* * *
Lucius Malfoy, after having the Mark removed, had looked barely alive—Narcissa was not especially pleased to see him in that state, but she naturally let in Hagrid, who was carrying him, and Snape of course.
Snape was privately wincing at his friend-and-patron—weak, was he—while carefully turning away so that Lady Malfoy couldn't see it.
He's grown more sensible, Andrei thought. One hopes the pursuit of a Mastership will make him more so still. And turned his attention to Narcissa—too good an opportunity to miss. She answered in monosyllables at first, but gradually opened up, giving the gamekeeper—who by her recollection had previously managed two consecutive words only on a good day—a look of considerable surprise as he deployed fairly complex linguistic constructions.
Andrei had been about to repeat his advertisement for Severus and his potions, but caught the warning glance and held back. The contract was one thing, but becoming the target of Malfoy ambitions was not something he wished on Snape. Even if they'd already snapped him up for their heir.
To win over Narcissa Malfoy requires a professional, Andrei thought before long—though he'd suspected as much. But rescue came from an unexpected quarter: Lady Black herself.
A commotion from the fireplace room, where they were being received, brought surprise to their hostess's face—surprise that only deepened when Walburga entered and, as usual, greeted Hagrid and Snape. From that moment, it was fairly safe to say that Narcissa Malfoy would shortly be joining their inner circle. And given how she composed herself, her husband wouldn't be going anywhere either.
And so they parted on terms of business: Walburga and Narcissa headed to the library to investigate the curse, while Hagrid and Snape decided to check on Lucius, who had finally come round but was still very weak. Despite this, his gaze kept returning to his clean forearm—and Andrei wouldn't have been himself if he hadn't used the patient's condition to draw out a couple of outwardly innocent promises.
"Support," Lucius sighed. "Material? Unlimited?"
"We have moral support to spare, but this is actually simpler than that. Access to information—not only for Severus, but for a couple of his… colleagues."
Severus looked at Hagrid with surprised eyes.
"A couple?" Lucius tried to clarify.
"Two, shall we say, interested parties."
"If they're prepared to give the standard guest oath, I agree."
* * *
"Our forest friends are so eager to visit?" Snape concealed a schoolboy's naughty grin—this memory always brought one out. As did a great deal that had to do with Hagrid.
It seemed he was about to witness the Malfoy couple receiving a miniaturised Aragog and Osenina in her "public form," which Hagrid for some reason solemnly referred to as "a Class Pinocchio automaton." Snape had even tracked down a book about the Italian Pinocchio and read most of it—and understood very little, especially what robots had to do with anything.
He was aware that the magical arachnid had been practising shapeshifting and had made considerable progress—exclusively in changing size, as it turned out; other magic had proved beyond him. Ninochka, meanwhile, had long since laid her own path from the Forbidden Forest to the overgrown park of the Prince manor—exclusively for the sake of the Prince library, naturally. And yes, Aragog also dropped by occasionally—the spider's reading progress was quite impressive, though he did have to keep his side and upper pairs of eyes covered while reading, as they got in the way.
A wooden girl and an Acromantula in dark glasses in the Malfoy manor library! No—he would absolutely be accompanying them. For something like that… life itself was worthwhile.
* * *
Everything would have been going splendidly, if not for the complications with young Crouch.
Crouch senior, after consuming certain "dietary supplements" and having his mind thoroughly, if figuratively, rinsed out with a bottle brush, had finally consented to being examined for the curse—himself and his wife. It had cost Snape—now a month into being the unofficial new colleague—considerable effort to obtain the St Mungo's staff's agreement to Lady Black's presence. Just one former, admittedly, but still…
As it turned out, the effort was well spent. The Healers only found the curse when it was quite literally pointed out to them.
Treatment, thanks to both ladies, was swift. The trainees followed the women at their heels, ready to note down practically every word—and in the end, both ladies graciously consented to become honorary external consultants to St Mungo's. Apparently female hearts—and careful calculation—could not resist: Healers in Magical Britain were few enough, and all of them were untouchable.
When the time came to swear the oath, however, Walburga did not omit to add that responsibility for patient selection—for herself and her niece—rested entirely with the summoning physician. Meaning that if she herself had placed a curse or jinx on someone, they would absolutely not be expecting her to remove it. For the patient's own protection. Unless she cooled down and chose to offer help of her own accord. Is that something that actually happens? was written on the faces of the hospital staff—but no one dared voice it aloud. Ladies like this had never consulted there before. Had never even crossed the threshold.
The Crouches were slowly recovering, and the wretched father at last enquired after his son. And learned that the boy was weathering Azkaban… barely at all. He had been unconscious for five days.
Telling this to his wife, who was herself still far from fully recovered, Bartemius Crouch wisely refrained from doing. But he finally activated every lever available to him, and had the boy transferred to the prison infirmary—which fortunately was not on the island with the prison itself, but on a neighbouring one, at a considerable distance. It wasn't a resort there either, but at least one didn't have to fear for the patient's life: the infirmary was overseen by St Mungo's specialists, which mattered enormously.
Behind his back at the Ministry, whispers had begun to circulate—and since Crouch was highly sensitive to anything touching his career, he listened intently.
"Did you hear—he had the boy transferred to the infirmary. Poor lad must be in a very bad way."
"Can you believe it—that insufferable prig actually turned human?"
"I'd never have wanted to be his son. Poor boy."
"Did you notice Crouch himself is looking haggard?"
"Could he actually have learned to feel something?"
The looks he met—where before he'd seen only the desire to impress and not put a foot wrong, glassy and empty—had become, unexpectedly, sympathetic. And when the Minister himself, in a private meeting, suggested that given his son's sharply deteriorating condition a reduction of sentence might be warranted, Crouch was caught entirely off guard.
Before, he would have refused with indignation, concluding this was some test of his loyalty. But now…
"I do understand," the Minister said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Reputation and so on. But death or permanent incapacitation is certainly not the punishment that ought to follow an attempted attack where no one was actually harmed. Don't you agree, Bartemius?"
All he could do was nod and try to swallow—but the lump in his throat made breathing difficult for a long time afterward. Until, two days later—that being how long the emergency supplementary hearing and paperwork had taken—his son was finally home.