Author : Julielal

Translator : Archea

Rating : PG

Summary : Sirius Black doesn't know if he is The Good, The Bad or The Ugly, but he knows what – or rather whom – he's after.

Author's note : don't look for the harmonica within the story – just take the title as an atmospheric clue. This story has already been published in its original French version under the name Sur un air d'harmonica. Archea was kind enough to translate it and let me publish it under my own account, and I owe her my eternal gratitude for her brilliant work.

Translator's note : www. legendsofamerica. com was an immense help and should be commended. Hope you like the result, (Eyrie), because it's a gift to you in due gratitude for your lovely art.

Harmonica Blues

Me and my bleeding feet. Nope, Ma, no foul mouth here. Literally bleeding, I think. Can't take off my boots to check, my feet would probably follow suit. Blame that goddamn excuse for a horse, Creecher – the nag whined itself to death couple of weeks ago and look at me now, look at the bloody fool footing it across that land of the dead on his own.

Foul-mouthed fool, to boot. Yeah, well, thinking of Ma always does that to me. Why ? Why, because the old bitch died neary a year ago, leaving the kit and caboodle – the house, stables, slaves, railway shares, the family estate in a word - to Brother Reggie, sanctimonious bastard that he is. I was left the family horse, born the same year as I was, the lean mean beast, with Mother's compliment to her first-born. God knows I'd have travelled faster on a pair of buckskins.

What do you expect ? A guy like me is a stain on an Old New York Family blazon. Oh, if I had played the game along and married among my kin and left my wife a virgin all the days of her life, young Esau would have got his share all right instead of being kicked off as a vulgar Cain. But I'm not the kind to play along an old woman's whim, and women – well, women aren't a whim of mine.

My folks see the Westerners as an inferior species, a bunch of muddy, soggy, flea-ridden immigrants. Could be. They at least never threatened me with a judge committing me to the noose-end of a rope on a charge of sodomy. Truth is, women are a rare commodity down here, apart from the missionaries' missis and a few old mabs bitten to the raw by syphillis. So a man makes do as he can.

I seem to spot a town at the far end of my trail. Could be I've stinged myself one sip of water too many, could be I'm seeing things, but the thing I see looks like the real thing. About time too. I'm a walking pillar of dust and my teeth are starting to totter on my gums for feeding too long on dry meat and stone-dry bread.

My feet are raw stumps stumbling their way on. Could be they'll reach Spinner's End before nightfall if they go unhalted. Haven't stopped before, won't stop now, hell.

Why am I going the whole length – is that what you're wondering ? I'm doing it for my brother. Oh no, not Reggie. Reggie could be dying as I speak, gasping for breath, and I wouldn't give a damn, not I. I'm doing it for my true brother, the one I chose for myself. I'm doing it for James.

Our folks had sent us to the same YMCA Academy and we kids got along like a saloon on fire. Seven years we stayed there, and became sworn brothers, the two of us, along with two other boys sharing our dorm. Young scamps we were, and had such a time together that the janitor, an old Western guy, got into the habit of calling us the Marooners (1) and the name stuck. Those were the years !

(1) to go marooning : to have a party, to go on a picnic (A Writer's Guide to the Old West)

Well. The day came at last when the pack of us were sent back home. Ma and I fell out and she gave me a slight alimony so her pious friends would revere her as one of America's Noble Mothers, and I got myself a set of rooms not far from Jamie's. Jamie's people were all for his marrying now that he was done with education and they began to parade the New York belles under his nose. Thumbed his nose at them, James did, saying he felt like one of these hams they put up a greasy pole for folks to climb and unhook. Until the day they showed him that little russet with a quick green eye and a tongue to match and he changed his tune. Mashed to the bone, he was, and I laughed myself silly just watching him. If Miss Evans hadn't been such a nice girl, I'd never have let him off the hook, poor ham. Ah well. They got married in a jiffy, then got a kid of their own, then got me to be his godfather, and a thing of pride it was to me.

And now our tale turns sour.

You see, old Potter had made a fortune in the garbage removal business. Which was quite a rags-to-riches enterprise thirty years ago, let me tell you. But at the time when Jamie's wedding bells were ringing, there were other people ready to trash things up. The Sicilian mafia are no fools : they know that monopoly control is to business what Texas Butter is to steak – a necessary spice-up. So Jamie's father was kindly asked by a guy named Voldemorte to step by and retire on the Eastern coast with a nice pad of money to ease his way. He said no.

No one can really say what happened to him but when he was found, the only recognizable item about him was his signet ring.

Next thing Voldemorte did was to send James his emissaries with a Decent Proposal. Poor silly proud James said no.

Voldemorte was the Sicilian mafia's wizard-in-chief. Don Voldemorte, as he would be called. Told everyone he came from old Italian stock but any wop down here would have claimed his dialect for their own. I ran across him — once. Never saw such a sight. Not a hair on his skull, pale as my arse, eyes bloodshot with all the opium he was consuming at the time. Mad as a hornet, too. Wanted his name to live forever, and had begun shooting everyone in his vicinity as a guarantee of survival.

Well. Jamie said no go, and Where Liberty Dwells There Is My Country, but he was smart enough to take cover while he could. Only a handful of us knew where the Potters lay in hiding, people they trusted – James's mother, me, an old friend of Lily's and our two former schoolfellows, Pete and Remy.

Not a fortnight gone and Pete, the vermin, gives the game away. Had gambling debts to square and thought far too highly of his hide. So he told everything and that same evening saw James and Lily murdered. Jamie's mother was heartbroken, she died within two months. Jamie's son was sent to Lily's sister in Chicago where she took such good care of him he never saw his third birthday. Consumption, they said it was.

Couldn't do a thing about it, because I was lying in bits and shreds in a hospital where I stayed for... twelve months. Yeah.

What did you figure, that Pete was the first of us Voldemorte tracked down ?

Once I was up again on my feet, I hired myself a private detective to ferret about since it was clear the New York police had never raised a finger other than to bury the dead. I needed someone to punish, I'm that kind of guy, and the Don was already sporting an extra buttonhole, carved well into his navel after he stirred up some garbage in a Senator's life. Pete was found drowned like the rat he was two days after the Potters' death. This left me without a bad guy and I want a bad guy.

I want revenge.

I want my legacy.

Took me over a year but I got my man. I remember paying for the telegram that told of Harry's death, and I remember the guy summoning me to his office six months later to the day. I was all white and washy then. Not that I've much improved since, but chasing the sun westward did help with the complexion.

The guy explained that Voldemorte's being able to pin us down, Pete and me, was courtesy of Lily's old friend Severus Snape. Nope, no phony name here, his folks were Welsh immigrants. As I mentioned before, Snape knew about the Potters' hiding-place. He never coughed up their adress, no, but he pointed his slimy finger at the place where I could be found. Had been servicing Voldemorte's gang for months without a second thought. Had trained as an apothecary and could be useful to that Borgia lot when it came to disposing of people noiselessly. I'd first known him at the YMCA where he wormed his way in as a charity boarder and hated me from the first. Hated all of us Marooners in fact and vice versa — though James later made an effort on Lily's behalf but it never came to much.

Well. I had my Bad Guy, and all I needed was to get a grip on him. The detective said he had turned heels double quick at the time when Jamie's mother passed away, packing up and leaving New York in the true Go-west-young-man spirit. Which goes for me, too, since I've been riding after him for the best part of two years, in and out of Godforsaken holes, saddle bumming over hill and plain and desert, letting the Western sun tan my hide and the Western lingo taint my tongue as I ask innumerable toothless old timers if they've spotted another stranger, tall and thin, with sleek dark hair.

Till one of them answers at long last.

Would have reached in Spinner's End months ago if Ma's will had not hauled me back to New York in the meantime. You hated faggots, you hellbitch, but even from your ebony urn you beat them flat when it comes to being a pain in the ass. Ah well. No need to chew that cud now when the trail is not done with my feet.

The townsgate. Well, town is a mighty big word for one main road and a few board houses chasing one another on either side. Shops. A church. A school. If I had decamped after causing two murders, I'd have favoured a City crowd over these windscattered shacks. Snape being here – and I know, I know he is, means that Snape is not nearly as smart as in my memories of him. Hide in a sleazy little town, with no more than a hundred folks ? Why not stand right away on the town gallows, hoping that the rope will conceal him ?

Ah. Last shack is a saloon-cum-hotel shack, to judge from its neighbourhood. Saloon-cum-brothel, more likely, but I bet the goods are more than slightly stale and underequipped as far as I'm concerned. Still, since I don't want to end up naked and broke as on the day I was born – another lesson the West taught me the hard way – I address another old timer rocking the time on the grocer's porch, a mangy cat on his knees and a mangy look on his face.

'Say, old man. Wanna tell me about the saloon down here ?'

Old Man looks at me as if I was a piece of fungus on his sole and spits. 'Safe enough for you, boy. Pull out the old dime or two, and Roz here will treat you like her own blood an'kin.' Funny how, while his words are neutral enough, not to say friendly, his voice sounds as if he'd be glad to coat me with honey from hat to toes and throw me to an red ant-heap.

I'm right sick of old people.

So I nod at him and walk on to the saloon, where three of the local hicks size me up with a scowl. I'm too washed out to care, go straight to the bar and seek the barman's eye. A grimy old man with a beard, he's drying a glass on a cloth rag I wouldn't use on my boots.

'Hiya, friend,' I say, perching myself on a stool. The West has taught me to be polite with barmen : they never seem to budge, but what they know about their town and the people in it goes a long, long way.

The man with the beard nods at me.

'Care to rent a room to a man with a long journey behind him?'

Greybeard nods again. 'Check with the lady, son. She's busy upstairs but she'll be down direckly.' Which, in saloon lingo, means that the lady has taken a regular customer to a quiet corner and is busy letting him discharge the ol' gun or two. Nothing new here.

'All right, I can wait.'

Unasked, the barman sets an amber-coloured glass under my nose.

'And I haven't ordered anything.'

'The drink is on me. You look like you can use one.' Why not ? I take a sip. The sip doesn't enlighten me as to the nature of the drink, but it washes some of the dust off.

Before I can see the bottom of my glass (not a bad thing perhaps) the aforementioned Roz booms her way down the stairs, followed by another bearded man, a big strapping fellow, broader and even dirtier than me. I find it more prudent to quit the premises but she holds me up on my first step to the door.

'Hiya, stranger,' the lady purrs upon seeing me. 'Lookin' for some fun?'

'For god's sake, Roz, he wants the room unfurnished,' the barman says with a sharp look in my direction. Why, are the two man and wife ?

'He sure looks sewn up,' Roz answers with a shake of her head and a click of her tongue as she assesses me. 'I'll get Number Four ready for him. Abe, tell Dobbie to take up a pail of hot water. Nothing like a good wash to pep you up, is what I say.'

And off she goes, like a small tornado, never speaking to me directly. A bustling girl, but then country women often are, I'm told. Not that I know much about women. Or the country.

She's right on one account, however. A good wash does pep you up, and Snape can wait till I smell like a live man again.

Come morning, I'm clean, I'm fed and I've slept on a hay mattress. I'd feel blissful if Snape wasn't waiting for me, somewhere in this little town, perhaps the very next shack. I know it, and it makes me mad to think he could even step in here, into the saloon, to bend the old elbow. But if my memory serves me right, Snape is bent in quite another way. Pity. It would have been a gain of time.

First, I must find my man. Well, I know how to proceed. Then, I must decide what I'll do with him. Can hardly step into his home, shoot him flat and hike back to New York. Tempting, but contrary to my sense of etiquette. Third, there's the question of what I shall do next, granted I'm still alive. A wobbly premise at the best. Snape is a hell of a stinker, and the only course where he excelled at school was military tactics. A number of us kids were due for West Point on the dawn of our twenty-first birthday and Hogwarts Academy thought they'd steal a march on the curriculum. I'm a pretty good shot, but so was he at the time.

Never thought I'd leave this town head first, anyway, and would rather end with a bang than a whimper.

First things first. One thing the West never taught me, because it's common to large cities and frontier towns, is that the barber's is the best place to hear some talk. I'm a lucky guy : the barber lives two shacks away.

Might as well die... handsomely, now I think of it. In my mother's little black book, vanity headed the list of my numerous failings. So I took, and still take, a perverse joy in dolling myself up.

The bell over the door has hardly rung that a midget of a man with a shock of white hair darts at me and pumps my hand as if expecting a shower of dimes to fall from my sleeve. 'You're the gent who arrived yesterday, aren't you now ? Welcome to Flitwick's, capillary artist, that's me, and here's my wife Minnie.' I squint at the dark corner he's pointing and see a tall, stern, silent woman, the very image of my former governess. 'It is so seldom that visitors join us, may I wish you a pleasant stay? Oh, but how rude of me, sit down, do ! Now what will it be ? Haircut ? Shave ? A relaxing facial massage, perhaps ?'

And on he goes, never taking breath. Fuck it, he's got some lungs for a dwarf. I settle for a plain haircut. Shaving is my forte, all the more when it comes to letting a stranger give my neck a love lick with a blade. I let Flitwick drape me in a white sheet, ominous thoughts be damned, and listen to his prattle with a few « hums » to oil the flow.

'And what brings you here, if I may ask ?'

At last. 'I've come to visit an old friend of mine.' Slow and sure, even-pitched, a much rehearsed phrase.

'Oh, really ? Another city gent, perhaps ?' Another... what the hell ! You'd think I had « WASP » branded on my forehead, instead of Cain's mark. 'We don't have many down here. Would it be indiscreet to ask...'

'Snape. Severus Snape. Tall, slim, dark-haired – not precisely a friend to capillary artists.'

I can see the dwarf's face lighten up in the mirror. 'Oh, of course !' My heart is beating like a damned soul at the gates of hell but I keep a straight face. 'Oh yes, everyone knows Mr Snape. He is our apothecary. Before he settled here, we had to see the... (he coughs) well, the savages for medicine. He's done us an inestimable service, I dare say. And even though he never sets foot here, I myself pay his shop regular visits.'

My mouth is trying to answer, but dusty air comes out. I cough in my turn. 'And where might his shop be ?'

There.

A little raspy, but it has been said.

'On the outskirts of our town, the last house before the desert. A quiet man, is our Mr Snape. Oh, my good sir. Do you want a glass of water ?'

I smile at him. To judge from his reflexion, I must look more than a little scary. But I couldn't care less. I've got him. I've got my man.

And then, I let twenty-four hours pass.

Checking my father's guns. Of course. Cleaning my father's guns. Yes. Greasing the holsters. Which took less than forty minutes, all said and done.

Am I afraid, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact ? Am I plain nervous ? I might be. I might be realizing that in one hour's time, I'll be dead. I've always thought that the last hour would be happy hour for me, with a queer, wild happiness. Perhaps I'm just struck with stage fright.

His door is before me and I've been staring at it for minutes now, motionless. Why ?

And now an Irish matron, flanked with a covey of carrotty brats, is pushing me aside so that she can step in, muttering a few profanities about young people today and their uncouth ways. A whiff of laughter rasps my throat. God, what have I let myself in ? God, what has God to do with the whole goddamn caboodle ? Quit beatin' the devil around the stump, and push that door open.

There is another bell over the door, a crystalline one. The shop smells of moss and ether in a sparse light that ricochets on the wall stacks ladden with glass urns. The bowls are filled with powders, oils and dry leaves of all sorts. A typical apothecary's shop – typical but for the man standing behind the counter.

The tall slim stranger, with the sleek black hair.

He hasn't changed one whit.

And I hate it. Why do I hate it so much, that I've aged twenty years in a course of five while he remained unaltered? Why is it that I'm the one bearing the brand of the past while his skin is as smooth as ever ? And why, waiting for that tide of wrath to engulf me, does sadness come instead like a blow that leaves me dead tired ? I've been running for so long by now that I don't even know if I want revenge. What I want is for everything to end, here, now, betwen us, ultimately.

Bending over a register, he hands the carrotty matron a bag of brown paper while the children, fascinated, gaze at a bullfrog preserved in a bottle of formol. He speaks, then, in a low voice that makes it impossible for me to catch his words, and the woman hands him a series of coins. Then she turns around and leaves the shop, stopping to catch by their ears a pair of young redheads when they are about to uncork the bottle.

Snape throws the coins into a cash box and bends upon his register again. His face is as pale as before, even after spending a brace of years on the edge of the desert. Silence oozes from the urns.

'I expected you to come sooner,' he says at last. The same voice, too. The low somber pitch that he could make audible at will. Only four years ago, that voice made my heart ram against the prison of my ribs. He never knew, of course, and I shall not light that lamp today.

For one split second I wonder what our fates would have been if he had known. Then I let that thought be trampled and done with. It's enough to drive a man insane.

'I was held up on the way.' And now the truth glitters, along with the dead things in the glass urns. I am a fool. I launched myself into a suicidal crusade when I was more than three quarters mad with grief. I ran after a man I had deemed guilty, ran across hill and valley and desert, and what have I found? Poor Snape. Poor bitter Snape, too deprived to be happy and too used to deprivation not to equate happiness with the mere absence of grief.

It comes upon me like a sickness, that truth, but it leaves me clear-headed. I shall walk the trail to its end. Even if the trail is a mistake, even if it spoils two lives, that is what I shall do. What else is there for me ?

'I suppose you want us to step outside now,' Snape says, his face unreadable.

'I thought we'd wait for sunset. Play by the rule. You know.' Now his face looks almost amused.

'By the rule, Black ? Ah, well. A man does change over time. Meanwhile, shall we have a drink ?'

The answers slips out of my throat, smooth and quick. 'Wouldn't say no.' I feel like one of these automata you can watch in the Eastern coast fairs. Where is Black, and what has he done with the will that came to him from his mother ?

Snape, who has disappeared into his house, now returns with two glasses and a bottle of Bourbon whose very hue suggests that he paid a fortune for it. He pours two generous doses and we drink slowly, speechlessly. After a moment, when I feel dangerously close to shifting my feet, I speak again.

'So. What was Mother Goose doing here ?'

Snape takes a careful sip, the epitome of serenity. We might be chatting at one of Mother's social gatherings. Speak of a revenge tragedy.

'Oh, Molly. She's the pastor's wife and as you can see, she's busy making sure the church won't lack a next generation of parishioneers. She wanted some willow bark.' I raise my eyebrows. 'To chew. Tooth powder is seldom to be found down here.'

'Oh. Of course.' A fool. A complete fool. 'So, hum. How is business doing ?'

'I have monopoly control over fifty miles if not more. I'm doing fine.' I can hear the crisp pride in his voice, taking me ten years back, and suddenly I feel more comfortable.

'I dare say you lost contact with – everyone ?'

'Yes.' A sharp, definite answer, with a hint of offense in the voice.

'The same goes for me.' He stares at me, surprised. 'There is no one left.'

'Not even Lupin ?'

'No. He died three years ago, when there were those riots against compulsory service in New York. The poor sap was not even a rioteer, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So – a bullet went through his throat. Same old tale.'

Strangely, Snape looks down with hooded eyes and shakes his head. He never liked Remy to begin with, and yet, for a fleeting moment, he almost looks sad. 'I can't say I'm very surprised.' The urns shimmer, the silence oozes again.

Nearly twenty minutes elapse before he strikes speech again, this time to greet a new customer who has just stepped in. Another beard, of the Santa Claus variety. An old man sporting a garish blue shirt with a star-shaped badge pinned to it. Snape nods a welcome. 'Sheriff Dumbledore.'

'Ah, young Snape. Do you still have some of that unguent for toe corns ?' Snape doesn't even answer as he steps into the back store. The sheriff now peers at with a benevolent smile. 'You must be our latest newcomer.' I nod carefully. 'Ah, yes. You should hear Mr Flitwick speak of you – nineteen to the dozen. Quite an impression you've made on him. Not to mention old Patil's daughters, they seem to find you most eligible.'

I must remember to close my mouth. 'I'm not sure I quite follow you, sir, but thank you.' The old man lets out a deep chuckle and claps my shoulder firmly. There must be a fitting answer to this but I am spared the trouble of searching for it as Snape re-enters with a phiol.

'You remember how to use it ?'

'Sure, my boy. Chalk it up for me, will you ?' Snape nods consent. He probably trusts only a happy few with buying on credit. Dumbledore turns to leave, but stops with his hand on the doorknob. 'Find a place where no one will be met with a stray bullet, will you ?' The door shuts with a gentle chink.

My incredulous eyes flick to Snape's.

'I've stopped trying to understand long ago,' he simply says. Then, in the same quiet voice : 'You brought your own weapons, I suppose ?'

'Why ? Would you lend me some of yours ?' My own voice is sarcastic, but I'm curious to hear the answer.

'It is better for all concerned that you meet me well-armed, and Borgin is a known swindler.'

'Borgin ?'

'Our local gunsmith.'

'Oh. Well, I have my colts. Dragged them all the way to here, so I might as well use them.'

'Good. As you said yourself, we should play by the rules.'

I cannot tear my gaze from him. Is it that he has changed, if just a little, in the end ? Yet he always had that warped moral sense. Back at school, he was the boy who thought it mighty funny to slip a frog down your shirt collar, but expected revenge from you like a sacred duty. And revenge – could be pretty ugly, whether he stood at the giving or the receiving end.

'When the sun sets, then ?'

'Of course. There is a clear space of field just outside of town.'

'Yes, I saw it on my arrival.'

Silence oozes from the glasses he takes up. 'See you tonight, then.'

My throat has never been so dry. I nod my leave. When I hear the bell ring after me, it takes all I have not to glance over my shoulder.

Evening has come and the sun is going like a fired bullet, hurting my eyes as it slips over a mountain crest. The holsters hug my thigs, heavy, consenting. My hands are clammy with sweat in the cold evening air.

The end is beginning to strike. Why am I so little sad ?

Snape was on the spot when I came. He and I never traded word. The old carcase I saw upon my arrival asked me for my size and shoulder breadth with a huge happy grin. Son of a bitch. Dumbledore came too, bringing a tall gangly red-headed man with a receding hairline. I never realized who he was until he asked if I wanted to confess my sins.

I said no. He stepped over to Snape, too far for me to hear, and was obviously told to go to hell.

There's only a sliver of sun bordering the crestline. I'm forcing my breath to count for me, quietly, smoothly. I can hear the blood knock in my throat. The time has come.

Snape has positioned himself in front of me at a thirty pace interval. The bullet enters the mountain and suddenly, the cold is upon us. Dumledore's voice rises in the cold air. He is counting numbers backwards.

Six.

My hands rest upon the pistol grips. Haven't practised for months. Should have. Always found a good reason not to.

Five.

Snape's face is a clean slate. Wonder what he's thinking.

Four.

I'm thinking of Jamie, Lily, Harry. I'm thinking I've lied to myself, all these years. I'm not doing this for them.

Three.

I'm doing it for myself. Only for myself. And it took now and all of today for me to have the guts to admit it.

Two.

Wonder if Mother will have the guts to love me in the afterlife.

One.

Perhaps I'm doing it for Snape t

Zero.

My hands act on cue as I hear the count. The cold air shakes with two reports. My ears buzz and I feel pain hugging me, higher than the colts, a very small sun burning white for a second. Then – nothing.

Snape's head jolts backwards, slowly. He is a still image for one second, then collapses to the ground. I lower my eyes. There's a small hole in my shirt, franged with blood. My knees must have given way under me because the ground is much closer than it should be. Then I feel it under my butt, under my back. I am not in pain. I am very tired. The sky over the ground and me is purple-coloured and I can hear a man's voice, as far as the sky, but I don't understand it. I'm not even interested in it. A man's face, bearded and seamed with age, bends over my face. The man's lips are moving, but I can't hear a sound. I wish he would go and leave me with the sky.

The face goes with infinite sadness. Why ? There's nothing sad. There's a moon in the sky.

I give a contented sigh.

Then close my eyes.

Then do not open them.

FINIS