The week wasn't a fun one, not with every second conversation being about Black, and all the others about Quidditch. Daniel got sick of having to alternately pretend to be clueless, so he spent a lot of his free time either in the library pretending to study or finding time to check on Black. He had never pretended to be even slightly tolerant of Quidditch, so when he went to ground in the week before the match, nobody thought anything of it.
It was pretty easy for Daniel to make time for Black at least three times a day. Though neither of them had said anything about their sudden glut of communication, the look of relief on Black's face whenever Daniel activated his mirror spoke volumes. By Friday afternoon, when Daniel had wandered out into the grounds before Runes, Black was cracking Charms jokes and dishing all kinds of dirt on the teachers that were still around from his schooldays. Daniel was getting pretty good at wheedling some tutoring out of him too, despite the weak protests Black put up at helping a Slytherin.
Daniel learned a lot from the way the man talked about the Dark Arts. He'd been careful not to ask for help in Defence until Black had already given him tips in a few other subjects, and by then Black was enjoying showing off almost as much as Draco did, sometimes getting frighteningly unguarded, and brutally honest. He hated the Dark Arts. Despised them, loathed them. He had a morbid kind of fascination with dark creatures, but as soon the talk moved to humans and dark magic, he got that dangerous look in his eyes. Daniel would watch the slow burn, and wonder what would have to happen to a person to make him feel that way, about anything.
By the end of the week he had a theory that suited him. Black had been in love with Potter's wife. It was no secret that the Blacks were inbred, treacherous and stark raving mad, and this Black had inherited all that stuff without it making him quite so thoroughly evil. Black had been obsessed with Lily, and when she married Potter it had sent him over the edge. He'd made an alliance with the Dark Lord, and got himself made Secret Keeper for their hiding place so he could lead the Dark Lord to Potter and the baby they had, and he could have Lily. Or maybe he wanted the kid for his as well. It didn't really matter either way.
The Dark Lord, being as he was a huge git, had just used Black's betrayal to take out the whole family, and probably laughed in the guy's face about it too. The rest of the story went like everyone thought it did. Black's obsession with Harry Potter made way more sense that way, and explained why he wasn't trying to murder the kid. The son of the woman he'd loved, but with another man. The Dark Lord had jack shit to do with it. And that was why Black hated dark magic so much too, since it had killed Lily Potter, and was all connected up with his moment of stupid and teaming up with the Dark Lord.
All that was left was to fit the bloody rat into it somehow. A rat with no connection to Potters, or Blacks, or Dark Lords, or anything. Maybe the guy just really liked rats.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
Quidditch was bad enough when it was nice out. At least then Daniel could use the time to soak up some sun, and shake off the stillness of the dungeons. But this was just stupid. And worse, people didn't seem to notice how insane the whole thing was. Sure, they were wizards, so they had warming charms, and repelling charms for the worst of the rain, and spelled clothing, but that didn't mean they had be so damned enthusiastic about sitting God knew how many feet up in the air and staring at nothing, because the rain was so heavy it blotted everything out.
Maybe he could duck out of the crowd and go back into the castle. No one would notice; the only people who tended to pay much attention to him were Theo and Draco. Draco was wherever Quidditch players went when they weren't playing, and Theo was walking ahead with both Puceys. He could find out who won later. In fact, he'd probably hear about it for a month straight before anyone remembered there were other things in life than sport. He could talk Black into helping him through the next step in the Animagus transformation. He'd been holding out, saying Daniel wasn't ready, but that was a load of shit. His meditation did everything Black said it should, and the man knew it.
There was someone on either side of him then, figures with hands deep in their pockets, and shoulders hunched against the wind.
"Ready to get your butt kicked?" Dean asked from his left, half-shouting against the noise of the wind.
"Ready to get my butt frozen," Daniel retorted, surprised that the two of them would dare to associate with a Slytherin on a Quidditch day. Then again, they were Gryffindors. Reckless. "Shouldn't you be off kissing Potter's feet or something?"
"Line's too long," Dean said, grinning. "Seriously, what are you lot thinking? Warrington?"
"I don't care," Daniel bellowed, so that even in the wind and rain his words came out as a shout. "I don't care, I don't care I don't care."
"They always say that," Seamus said. "That way, it hurts less when they lose."
"We're not going to be able to tell who wins in this," Daniel said. "They're all going to have their heads smashed off by Bludgers and the game will never end because all the players will be dead and no one will be able to catch the stupid snitch and we'll all starve to death. Or maybe drown."
"Nah, Harry'll catch it," Dean said dismissively. "Anyway, we have to go find Lavender and Parvati."
"Have fun," Seamus said, and the two of them sped up and vanished into the crowd.
Daniel made his mind up, turned, and jogged back into the castle.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
For the first time that week, Black wasn't answering his mirror. Daniel took a deep breath, and decided against panicking. Just because the castle was practically empty again for the first time since Hallowe'en and until now Black had always been right at the mirror as soon as Daniel had said his name didn't mean that he was trying to get into Gryffindor again.
He could go up there and see for himself, maybe. The more he thought about that, the more he really had to go up. He sighed, tucked his wand up his sleeve, put on a cloak and made his way through the empty common room out to the corridors, and started up to the seventh floor.
Being in the castle during a Quidditch match was like hanging out at school in the summer holidays. Even four floors up, Daniel couldn't shake the feeling he was walking through a dream. His nerves about maybe meeting Black weren't helping. Nor did the portraits, calling out to him that he was missing the match, and that he'd better not be up to anything shady, because they were watching him.
He started to walk far louder than usual to try and shake the eerie feeling, but the echoes his footsteps made things worse, and he stopped quickly. Just as he was about to break into a jog to make the trip shorter, his head was filled with ice water, which spread quickly down to his torso and then was gone, replaced by an odd white haze in front of his eyes. It took a few steps for the rest of his body to slow and stop, leaving him staring at the ghostly boots and skirt in front of his face.
He took a few steps back and tried to shake the cold out of his bones. He hated it when ghosts did that. This one hadn't even noticed she'd done it, apparently; she was too caught up in a book she was reading. Which was ridiculous, because it was a ghost book, so she'd had plenty of opportunity to read it before. Ghosts were dumb.
"Hey," he said, jogging up and to the side of the ghost. "Will you watch where you're going, next time?" His voice sounded far too loud and aggressive in the odd stillness of the castle.
She sank slowly to floor level and turned vague eyes in his direction, blinking slowly. "I beg your pardon?" she said politely.
She was young. Maybe not even twenty, but her eyes were so sad. They were so sad that thinking they were haunted didn't strike him as even slightly amusing. It was just the right word.
"Uh," he said, "You went right through me just then." He pointed at the spot a few feet away where it had happened.
"I do apologise," she said, dropping a small curtsey. "I was simply engrossed, I'm sure you understand."
"Not really," Daniel said. He was ready for them to go their separate ways again, but now the ghost's attention had been dragged away from her book, she had fixed it all on him. You couldn't get away from a ghost that wanted to talk to you, as he'd learned with Myrtle, and you sure as hell didn't want to piss one off. "But it's fine. I just think you should look out for people a bit more, is all."
"I was under the impression everyone was out of doors at the match," she said, still in that dreamy, earnest way. "I prefer to take my stroll when it will not break my concentration. The students are so noisy, it gives me quite a headache at times."
"Well I'm sorry to have disturbed you," Daniel said, the mention of Quidditch reminding him of Black, and the reason he was wandering the corridors to begin with.
"Oh, I have been rude!" she exclaimed, raising a hand in a gesture that reeked of elegance. "Forgive me; my name is Eloise Gladstone, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I apologise again for my clumsiness earlier."
Daniel hated apologies. They took all the wind out of a bloke's sails. "It's fine," he said again. "It made me a bit jittery. I wouldn't have said anything otherwise."
"Am I overstepping my bounds if I enquire what your business is inside on such an important day?" She started to drift along absently, and since it was in the direction Daniel was going anyway, he walked alongside her.
"I don't like Quidditch," Daniel said. "What are you reading?" He sped up a little, and she effortlessly kept pace.
"My brother's diary," she said, voice tinged with sadness. "It is all I have left of him, yet it fades as the years drift away from me."
Well, that was nice. Daniel decided, not for the first time, that no matter what issues he had left to deal with, when he died he was going all the way. Not a single hesitation, or second thought. Ghosts were such miserable people. "Sorry," Daniel said uselessly. "Maybe I should just go on upstairs and you can go back to your book."
"I don't mean to distress you," she said mournfully. "I find it difficult to remain mindful that my preoccupations are not of interest to those still breathing. Especially those so young. I can almost remember what it is to be young. Almost … " she stared wistfully out in front of them, holding her book one-handed to her chest.
"I'm not distressed," Daniel lied firmly. "It just seems that thinking about this stuff disturbs you, so I thought I'd nick off."
"No, indeed!" she said fervently. "Contact with the living awakens echoes of feelings that I am in danger of losing. To remember Gerard's life can only bring forth the memories I must recapture in order to demystify his death."
Okay, that was just about enough. "You haven't seen Sirius Black around here, have you?" he asked. "It's just, he might come in and murder me if I'm not careful, so maybe I - "
"Hmmm?" she said, again taking a moment to let her attention focus back on him. "Sirius Black? No, I haven't seen him since he commandeered my place of refuge for his … affairs. A reckless boy, that one."
"When was that?" Daniel asked. "In the past month?"
"Dear lord, no," she said with a small, gentle smile. "He was a schoolboy then, so full of life I could almost feel it emanating from him. He offered to help me, the darling, and badgered me for several weeks to let him. I could not allow it, and in the end I think he grew weary of his contact with the dead."
Daniel tried to imagine Black his age, having this same conversation with the same young, pretty woman, twenty years in the past. He wondered how many others she'd spoken to, and what they'd been like. If she'd ever …
"Did you ever meet anyone with the last name Seaver?" he asked, keeping his mind steady with a casual effort. It barely took effort any more.
"No," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Not that I recall. Only the truly memorable experiences linger so long in the memory. Even they fade over time."
"Binns does a pretty good job remembering stuff," Daniel said, trying to stop imagining what his birth parents had been like at school. He'd decided he didn't like them, after all, not after all the trouble they'd caused him. It was Rick, and Penny, who were his real parents. Seavers just created him, and jumped ship.
"He remembers that which he knew in his lifetime," the ghost said. "Even in those particulars, the nuances fade. Perhaps his constant contact with the young and hearty gives him the opportunity to remain lucid, but time will always take its toll. If not in one way, then in others."
"But you avoid us," Daniel said, interested despite himself. "And why wouldn't you let Black help you, if being around lively people is so good for you, and he was all full of life and everything?"
He started up the staircase to the fifth floor, and the ghost floated up beside him on a smooth diagonal. "Too much life is overwhelming," she said distantly. "And distressing, serving as a reminder of that which I have lost. Some thrive on such bedlam, but most accept that an entirely vicarious existence is ultimately the least satisfying. As for young Sirius, it is not the place of a ghost to burden the living. I have eternity on this earth to discover the truth; I will not rob a young man of one instant his youth to fill a hole which, even once filled, is paltry appeasement, and that only to me."
She talked like Snape, Daniel realised, but there wasn't a hint of haughtiness about her, and he wasn't having any trouble following what she was saying. He could swear sometimes Snape used big words just because he knew Daniel wouldn't understand them. This ghost talked that way like it was as natural as breathing. Well, as breathing had been. When she was alive.
Having learned her attitude to wasting the time of the living, Daniel felt it was safe to do the polite thing. "I don't suppose you'll let me help you, will you?" he said.
"Indeed not," she said. "In fact, I shall take my leave of you now. It is self-indulgent of me to have remained in conversation so long."
"No, it's fine," Daniel said. "Nice talking to you."
She smiled, curtseyed again, and sank quickly through the floor, leaving Daniel alone on the fifth floor. He set off to the next set of stairs, the castle not feeling quite so weird any more.
On the sixth floor he was accosted by a particularly loud portrait, of a tall, skeletally-thin man with a booming voice.
"Young man!" he bellowed. "Stop where you are."
Daniel gave it an irritated look and kept walking.
"Slytherin!" he shouted, even louder than before. "If you get up to any nonsense, I'll turn you in to Dumbledore, you remember that! We'll tolerate no interlopers up here, especially not your kind."
"You don't own the fucking castle," Daniel told the man, continuing to walk. "I'll go where I like, and you can keep your big mouth shut. Talking about security, when Black walked past you happy as Larry only a month ago. I'll report you to Dumbledore for being such a fucking hypocrite in a minute."
"HOW DARE Y — "
Daniel walked on, straight past the stairway up to the seventh floor, laughing as the portrait continued to holler along after him. He wouldn't risk going up to Gryffindor though, not now that he'd made a scene like that. If anything did go down up there, he wasn't going to be at the scene. Black was fine anyway, Daniel was keeping him on the level. And even if something did go wrong, there wasn't really anything Daniel could do about it. He'd been stupid to think he should go up in the first place.
He made his way quickly back down to the main floor, stopped by the kitchens to get a warm snack, and wandered back down into the Slytherin common room, wondering how long the Quidditch would take this time. In this weather, it would be a miracle if anyone caught the snitch ever, so he set himself up right by the fire, took out Potions and Charms homework, and stared at it, completely unable to decide which one was the more bearable.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
The common room would probably be more bearable if Slytherin had lost. Generally speaking, a miserable Draco was much easier to get on with than a euphoric one. He was bad loser, but he was a far worse winner. Daniel found a fairly distant corner table and sat with Theo, who was looking very satisfied, but seemed happy to just soak up the atmosphere in silence.
The team was sitting on the middle table, actually on top of it, still in their uniforms but with various hats and cloaks draped over them, drinking in the admiration from all around them. It didn't take long for them to break into a detailed retelling of the match. This was useful, since it didn't seem the spectators had seen much of it. Daniel ignored their gloating, trying to think of harmless reasons why Black might not have been able to answer his mirror. He did not think about the miserable "life" ghosts seemed to lead, because that was just way too depressing. But what Eloise had said about meeting Black had caught his imagination, and was edging him into dwelling onto the monumental fall the man had taken. From full of life, even to a ghost, to convict, wasting away physically, and barely holding on mentally.
He tried to push it out of his mind, and was so desperate to do so he started to pay attention to the Quidditch talk.
"That triangle cutter was stunning," Derrick said loudly. "She didn't see it coming for a second."
"They didn't think we could pull it off, the squibs," Montague said, and slapped the table enthusiastically.
"And then very next play Malfoy came out from behind the goals on the other side, had Wood rolling out - " That was Warrington, maybe. Or Bole.
"And it took him two goals to work out which was the middle post!"
"Bole's bludger helped."
"Hah, yeah. Sent him spinning like a leaf."
"That'll teach those ginger nobs to try so hard putting Malfoy down."
"Which they came nowhere near doing."
"How far away were they then? A hundred feet?"
"You'd think between two of them they'd be able to keep an eye on one player."
"It's like they thought maybe Potter wasn't their great saviour after all."
"Well, he isn't." That was Draco, speaking up for the first time. "He's a natural, sure, but so was Edric Blaxton, and look what happened to him. Two seasons with the Tornadoes, and out on his rear."
Daniel looked up, frowning. That snide, petulant tone wasn't what he'd expected from a victorious Draco. That was how he sounded when things didn't go his way.
Yeah. Draco was looking very, very unhappy. His hair was flattened by the rain; he hadn't bothered to fix it. The silver cape he had draped around his shoulders was crooked; he hadn't straightened it. Daniel looked at Theo curiously, and Theo just jerked his head at the team.
"Well, Blaxton was hardly fighting off hordes of Dementors at the same time," Bletchley said. "Not quite the same."
"He didn't fight them off," Draco snapped.
Flint snorted. "Weak little shit," he said. "Should have waited to see if he bounced."
The whole room laughed, and the team went back to reliving their glorious victory. Draco stayed sitting with them, but didn't join in.
"Potter fell?" Daniel asked Theo, trying not to suspect Black. Really, really trying.
"Yeah. Dementors again," Theo said. "Just as he was starting to play for the snitch. Dead set even with Draco, and then he was gone."
Daniel stared at him sceptically. "Dementors," he said. "At Quidditch. Like that would happen."
Theo shrugged. "It did," he said. "Draco and Potter copped it from them, then the dumb old bore sent them packing."
"Let me guess," Daniel said, sitting back and sighing. "Everyone was sooking over Potter and nobody noticed Draco's brilliance in catching the snitch."
"Yeah," Theo said, sitting back as well. "No one would have seen it anyway; nobody could see anything. But any catch in these conditions is pretty damn impressive. Draco's really proud of it, I think."
"Good for him," Daniel said. "I think I'll go downstairs."
"Yeah, show him you don't care and make him more miserable, that's a great idea," Theo said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh come on, he knows I hate Quidditch," Daniel said, getting up. "I'm not staying up here getting bored to tears for the sake of his precious feelings."
"Huh," Theo said, as if that was hugely interesting. "That's nice of you."
Daniel scowled at him. "Funny how you suddenly care about his stupid pride," he said. "Time was, you'd tell me exactly what to do to piss him off."
Theo just looked at him, calm and ever so slightly smug.
"Oh, sod off," Daniel said, and stalked off downstairs.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
He closed his curtains around him, cut off the sound, and pulled the mirror out.
He sat perfectly still for a minute or so, then took a deep breath. "Sirius Black," he said. He didn't know what he'd do if there was still no answer. He'd already failed at least twice to decide to turn Black in when he should have. He didn't know if he could keep it up.
"Hey," Black said, sounding perfectly relaxed. "Enjoy the Quidditch?"
That was just about all Daniel could take.
"No," he said sharply. "I was actually wandering around the castle, being chilled out by ghosts and shouted at by portraits, wondering if you were trying to get into Gryffindor Tower again, since last time the castle was completely empty you were going psycho with a knife. And you weren't answering the mirror. And I hate Quidditch anyway, even when it isn't in the freezing rain, so the answer to your question is no. No, no and no."
"Oh," Black said, sounding bemused and kind of stupid. "I thought you'd be at the match."
With the mix of relief and frustration he was feeling, Daniel just couldn't be bothered going into any of it. "I wanted you to talk me through the books I need to get from the list you gave me," he said, making himself relax and setting the mirror up against his pillow. He fished in his pocket for the piece of parchment. "I'm as good at that meditation as I need to be."
"Right," Black's face jerked about as he set the mirror down on the ground like usual, and dropped to sit by the wall of the cave thing he seemed to live in. "What order did I put them in there?"
"The order I needed them, you said," Daniel said. "There's a group of three up the top, but one of them's restricted."
"Yeah, the Scawen," Black said. "We just got - I told Wembley I needed it for the chapter on the history of druidic transfiguration. You're doing Runes, right?"
"Yeah," Daniel said. "But even if I convince Babbling she'll want to talk to me about it and everything, and I don't want to do a whole lot of pointless reading just to get to one book."
"You want to be an Animagus," Black said, like it was automatically worth any sacrifice.
Which it kind of was, Daniel thought after a moment. "Okay," he said. "Good point."
"Say none of the other books you could find explained well enough why druidic magic was seen as impure by the Normans," Black said, eyes distant. "And how … how that contributes to today's attitude toward runic magic. I don't know this Babbling's soft spot, but I'm sure you do."
Slytherin. Daniel practically saw the word on Black's lips. Hypocrite. "I'll think about it, I guess," he said.
"And while you read that one, talk it over with me," Black said. "It's pretty dense, theoretical, academic. Drove us crazy, and you have to read quite a lot of it to understand the important parts."
"Can't you just teach me?" Daniel said, heart sinking. "You seem to remember it all pretty well."
Black shook his head. "You have to learn it yourself," he said. "Trust me, this isn't something other people can do for you. I'll help, but help can only go so far."
Daniel sighed. "Fine. What about this Trivialities of Transfiguration one? Sounds like a crank to me."
Black let out his sudden, dog-like laugh. "That's got some real beauties," he said. "I wish we'd realised how useful it could be much earlier than we did. Best one of all though, is five hundred and ninety-something. Two, or three. Absolute classic."
Daniel heard the door to the dormitory open and close softly. "Someone's here," he said. "I'll get the books, talk to you soon. If you're not going to be there, for Christ's sake let me know first."
Black rolled his eyes and nodded. "Yes, father," he said, and the mirror faded back to normal.
"Hey, Daniel?"
Daniel shoved the mirror under his pillow and opened his curtains.
"What?" he said, absolutely not in the mood to talk to anyone really, and especially not Draco.
Draco sat on the bed. "I heard you didn't come to the match," he said, combing his fingers through his hair absently.
Daniel shifted away, trying to be subtle but probably failing. "Yeah," he said. "Seemed kind of pointless."
Draco huffed. "The point is solidarity," he said.
With Draco sitting on his bed, there wasn't really anywhere to go. "If you're miffed that I, just like all the people who actually went, didn't see you outfly Potter and catch the snitch, you're wasting your time complaining," he said, scooting back against his pillow. "It's very impressive I'm sure, but not that interesting. Well done."
Draco opened his mouth, but closed it again without saying anything. Then he opened it again. "Are you even glad we won?"
The door opened, and Draco's head whirled around in surprise. "I said - " he started, before falling quiet.
"Sorry to interrupt," Blaise said, closing the door behind him. "But you know, Crabbe and Goyle don't have the right to stop me coming into my own room, as they were smart enough to recognise. Eventually."
Draco stood up and stalked across to the door. He turned when he reached it, and stared coolly at Blaise. "You should try making an effort not to alienate those who have sympathy for you in the first place," he said. "One day, you might need something from someone in a higher position than you, and I'd hate to see you have to beg."
He went out the door, and Daniel couldn't help but grin at the look on Blaise's face. "Cheers," he said. "Excellent timing."
Blaise's forehead wrinkled. Daniel closed the curtains around himself again, breathed deeply, and thought of home.