Veritas 9
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Here's my Mea Culpa. I basically got burned out (at work, not at writing) & let a few nasty comments totally p*** me off one day, so that's why I took everything down. I'm touched and happy that there are any number of you who enjoy these stories, so I ask you to forgive my boorish tantrum & continue to enjoy them.
Umm, and here's the gruesome confession – I actually don't have copies of the earlier pieces of Veritas. If anyone has any of them, please let me know – I'll be happy to put them back up, now that I am over my nervous breakdown. Five weeks of 20 hour days is not a recommended way to live one's life. Ahem. I'll get 'This Was Falling' back up (Thanks to Princess Emma!) this weekend. I'll make a few corrections & put all 4 pieces up as one monster piece. I don't have all of On Flying. Again, if you have it, let me know. I will 'back engineer' that one, if I find the time.
So all my focus will be one taking this one forward – it's got a while to go. Okay? I could start at the beginning again, but it would be different, I'm sure. No more fits, I promise. I don't think you'll lose anything of the plot not having read the first bits (if you didn't). See the synopsis in Veritas 8B for a quick 'where are we'.
***
Sirius knew he'd been sulking, really, but couldn't stop himself. Too much was starting to come together, and more was at stake. Malcolm's arrival had made him feel an even greater sense of urgency, no doubt from the anxiety he felt over everything that had happened when Harry was so small. So much had happened since then, but now they seemed to be right back where they started, and it was depressing. He was different than he had been then, too. Young, invincible and so right, not having any idea how bad bad could really be. Sirius vaguely remembered being that person; but he was very changed, and knew how badly all of this could turn out.
But he was determined to snap out of it. Brooding and feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to solve anything, and it just might make you do something stupid. Again. He really was happy to have Harry, Ron and Hermione here with them. He was grateful to even be here himself. Staying with Remus had been wonderful; he'd tried to leave, every time Remus finished lying to a member of the Ministry, denying he knew anything of Sirius' whereabouts. They didn't really suspect that Remus was helping him, knowing the 'truth' of their history together, rather they seemed more concerned that Sirius might just kill Remus for the hell of it, having missed the opportunity all those years ago. Idiots.
Remus refused to let Sirius leave. "You will only leave this house if you are free or if you absolutely must. I'll put a binding spell on you if you force me to, but I will not have you living in caves starving to death while I have anything to say about it. You need to be here. We need to finish what we started."
And now Liz was back. He walked out to the drive with Harry to meet her and Hermione, who had just arrived with Katie. He knew he was grinning like an idiot. At least, reasonably sure of it after Harry gave him a jab in the ribs.
"Hello, Hermione," he called, ignoring Harry, "have a good Christmas?"
"Hello, Sirius. Yes, lovely, thank you. Where's Malcolm?"
Katie looked soberly at Sirius. "It didn't occur to me that I was being cruel not bringing him," she said with mock solemnity.
"I didn't say 'cruel', Katie," Hermione chided her. "But not very forward thinking of you."
Sirius shook his head. "It wouldn't have mattered. He's taking a nap, actually. At least Remus is, and Malcolm does tend to doze with him, so you'll have to wait a bit, sorry." Then he turned to Liz, and took her hand. "Welcome back. We missed you."
Liz just smiled and squeezed his hand before he dropped it to pick up her bags. "Hello, Harry; good to see you again."
"Liz. Nice to see you again, too."
They all walked into the house. Hermione and Katie went first, talking about some sort of potion brewing problem, Ron and Harry following with Ron telling Hermione to please stop talking about school work during their last week of freedom, and finally Sirius and Liz walked in together slowly. Katie and the others went into the kitchen.
"I'm starving," Sirius heard Hermione say. He looked at Liz.
"Hungry?"
She just smiled and started up the stairs. "Not just yet, actually. I've eaten enough over the past 10 days to see me through a few missed meals. I'll just unpack."
"Need any help?"
She stopped and turned to face him on the stairs. "No. But I wouldn't mind some company."
He couldn't resist. He just stepped up on the stair and gave her a small kiss. Sirius was very happy to have her back. She's only been gone for 10 days, to spend the holidays in London with her former in-laws, and to see her old friends, but it seemed like months. What the hell am I going to do when she leaves for good?
Liz smiled at him then continued up the stairs. He put he bags down next to the wardrobe in her room.
"Did you have a good time?" he asked sitting on her bed to watch while she unpacked. Liz grinned at him.
"It's always fun to get back with that rowdy crowd and raise Cain, thank you. Don't look at me like that, I can definitely cause a ruckus if I'm so inclined, Mr. Black."
"But you're so calm and polite with us, Miss Harker," he said grinning up at her while she passed. "I would never have guessed."
"Remus doesn't strike me as the type who'd be given to having an occasional booze-up and naughty party games contest in the parlour."
"Remus has a few tales to tell, Miss Harker, trust me. And just what naughty party games are you referring to?"
She laughed at him. "A few highly entertaining muggle games we learned at University. The sort of thing you should never do after you get out of university, actually."
"Too old for fun, is that it?"
"Technically you're supposed to be old enough to know better at that point, I think."
"That's no excuse."
"Oh, I know, Mr. Black," she winked at him.
***
Despite his earlier feelings of unease, after a few days Sirius was in the best mood he'd been in for a long time. He still had nightmares, he still was a wanted man, Voldemort was still quietly growing more and more powerful, but at this particular moment, he decided to just indulge in not thinking about any of that. The house was packed again with the people he cared most about, spirits were high, and the adults were up three to two in their ongoing snowball fights. Katie wasn't one for being outside getting quietly soaked to the skin, but Liz had turned out to be an enthusiastic participant. And a master strategist. Well, she's a Ravenclaw, I should have expected that. The Gryffindor boys are much more in favour of the direct frontal assault.
A few days after everyone had arrived, Sirius and Liz decided to take a walk one evening while the rest of the household became very involved in a rather lively game of cards. Sirius, though happier, was too restless to sit through it. Remus took him aside after dinner, noticing that he had been fidgeting, and suggested that he take Liz to get some air.
"Am I making you nervous, Moony?" he teased, but his heart wasn't in it.
"No," said Remus quietly, "but you seem preoccupied with something. I'm not sure what, but you haven't said anything to me. So talk to Liz. Maybe it has something to do with her?"
"Maybe. Maybe it's just a little something to do with everything," sighed Sirius.
"I know the feeling. But right now, just enjoy taking a walk. Won't solve any big problems, but it can offer a little solace, Padfoot," he smiled.
"Can I take Malcolm with us?" grinned Sirius, winking at him.
"Suddenly overcome your fear that the boy will freeze to death if you take him outside? No. He stays with us. No distractions."
Liz was happy to join him; they walked out the back paddock to the meadow. It was the only place beyond the house Sirius ever risked being out in undisguised. He conjured three little balls of blue flame so they could see, and sent them floating quietly out over the snow in front of them. He took Liz's hand and they walked on in a companionable silence for a while. Finally, Liz stopped to look at him.
"I take it from your rather subdued mood that you and Remus still aren't looking forward to telling the younger set everything that happened."
"No. Neither of us is looking forward to this."
She looked at him quietly. "Remus did say that we'd have a tough time convincing them what happened with Draco."
Sirius sighed loudly, and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "To be honest, I won't blame them if they don't believe us. We aren't certain that Draco was acting of his own volition. We just, well, feel like he was. Snape was not much help, but he did say that he trusted Draco implicitly. But that's the problem. Once again, we're rapidly getting to a point where you don't know who you can trust. I'm still furious that Snape tipped Malfoy off, even making sure that Draco was there to set us free. I understand why he did it, I know how valuable his cover is with the Death Eaters, but Remus really didn't need the experience. Malfoy was just a little too brutal in what he said and did. I don't give a damn what he does to me…. I don't want to go back there, Liz. The consequences of what happened last time were too terrible. I don't think I could stand it if anything…."
She silenced him with a shake of her head. "Sirius, none of us want this. To be honest, I feel better and safer right here than I ever felt then. Maybe it's because now I'm actually doing something, not just hearing things."
"It's nowhere near what it was like before. But that doesn't mean it won't…."
"That it won't get worse. I know."
Sirius looked at her quietly. Her pale hair glowed blue from the fireballs and he had to smile.
"Liz? You really like it here? I've been worried that maybe you felt, trapped, I guess. You don't have to stay here. You could apparate home every night if you really wanted. Just because I can't go anywhere doesn't mean you can't." The last part came out a little more bitter than he intended, and he looked at her apologetically. Liz smiled slightly.
"That seems a lot of bother and it would wear me out. Besides, we hardly keep regular hours on this little project, do we? I have much better access to everything I need to make the counter spell here than in my London flat, anyway. And…." She stopped, suddenly.
Liz broke his gaze and turned instead to look back at the house. Sirius couldn't read her expression, but he did hear her laugh quietly. "I originally agreed to come stay here while we worked on this problem because Malcolm was due in a few weeks and Remus preferred to stay at home, correct?"
"Yes. That was wonderful of you, you know. It made all the difference to Remus. That was a very important time for him. And Katie."
"I know. Of course, you were pretty happy to stick near the house, too," she smiled. "And it is much easier to get our work done with all of us here together."
"You like being woken up in the middle of the night because Remus just figured something out that for some inexplicable reason couldn't wait till dawn?"
"I like knowing I'm doing something important. Anyway, I guess I just got used to being here. Malcolm is almost three months old, and I'm still here. And I'll stay until this is solved, like I promised Dumbledore."
Sirius looked at her, but she did not return his gaze. This is not the conversation I thought we'd have. Neither of us is going to talk about what we really need to. Eventually this will be over, and then what?
"Liz?" he whispered.
She finally looked at him. He wasn't sure what her quiet expression meant.
"I'll miss you."
With that she finally stepped over and wrapped her arms around him.
"I just told you. I'm not going anywhere just yet, Mr. Black." She whispered in return.
***
The next day was New Year's Eve; Harry Ron and Hermione had three more days before they had to go back for the start of term. Harry asked Sirius that morning when they would finally hear some details about where Remus, Liz and Sirius were in solving the mystery of the Death Eaters' encampment.
"You've put us off for four days now. Enough. You promised that you'd tell us when we were all here. We've all been here for a while now…."
Sirius held up a hand to silence him.
"Harry, after dinner. I promise."
Not wanting to get into an argument, and Harry's expression suggested that what was most likely to happen if they continued their conversation, Sirius went into the kitchen to get something to eat. Katie, Liz and Hermione were all busy working on dinner.
"You cook, Hermione?"
"Hardly anything spectacular. But I'm good at following instructions. Fear not, Katie is in charge, and the meal will be lovely."
Sirius grinned. "Why is it just you three making dinner? Where's Remus?"
Katie smiled at him. "We're happy to do this ourselves, thank you. Remus is in his study with Ron and Malcolm."
Sirius laughed. "I never figured Ron would be my number one contender for the title of 'Malcolm's biggest fan'. He's grown rather attached to him, hasn't he."
"Now Sirius, Ron just went with Remus to get some extra help with his DADA homework," Hermione said with a grin. "Malcolm's got nothing to do with it."
"Oh is that what he said? I don't know Hermione, Malcolm seems to be giving Ron ideas…."
"Sirius…." said Katie, in a dangerous low tone near his left ear.
"Katie-girl? Can I do something for you?"
"Behave yourself, or leave." She winked at him.
Sirius took a seat under the window well out of the way of the work. He'd actually had little opportunity to talk to Hermione at all, and Sirius found her rather fascinating. She had changed considerably from when he'd first met her; she was definitely more relaxed and had started to show a strong streak of good humour that had been hidden under her seriousness for a long time. Funny, Harry thought her being named a Prefect would make her more uptight, but the opposite is proving true. Wonder how that happened.
"Are you enjoying being a Prefect, Hermione?"
"I'm not sure one enjoys being a Prefect, Sirius. It's a little intimidating actually. The underclassmen treat me like I have the answers to everything, which I don't, no matter what Ron and Harry say, and my peers seem to feel the need to …test my resolve to my responsibilities."
Sirius laughed. "Ah yes. I seem to remember relishing testing James' resolve. He was horrified when Dumbledore named him a Prefect."
"I appreciate the dilemma. But sometimes…."
"Even your best friends go to far, I know. James turned me in on three separate occasions, actually. And even Remus, once."
Liz laughed. "Let me guess, he was with you."
"No, actually. To this day I have no idea what he was doing out of bounds, though I have some suspicions."
Katie turned to him with a very amused expression. "Why Sirius, am I to understand that I know a marauder mystery you don't?"
"You know? What happened? Neither of them would talk!"
"No."
"Katie-girl! After all we've been through! You can't leave me like this…."
"Sorry; promised. Remus holds more sway with me than you do, that's just the simple fact of it."
"Just because you've 'pledged your troth' to the man? Come on; I'll tell you what I think it was and you just say yes or no."
"No, Sirius. You are seconds away from being excused from the kitchen for the rest of the day."
Liz winked at him. "Don't push it."
Sirius stood up. "Fine. I get this message. I'll just go join Remus and enlist Ron's help in my anti-Flich lessons with the little marauder," he grinned at Katie as he left.
"Sirius, as soon as Malcolm learns to talk, you may never speak to him again," Katie called after him.
***
The dinner was wonderful, and everyone was in high spirits. Finally they retired to the front room to wait for midnight, and Remus started to tell the story of what had happened at Malfoy Manor.
"Harry, we borrowed your cloak, obviously, to get inside the house. Malfoy hosts a sizeable ball, with a very diverse guest list, every year. Part of his 'good member of the community' persona. Snape provided us with a diagram of the house, so we could find the family shrine. We had to avoid the main rooms because we couldn't pass down the Grand Gallery, which was the fastest way to the shrine."
"Why?" asked Ron.
"Malfoy's enchanted the mirrors in there, something we let your dad know," said Sirius. "They compel anyone who looks into them to reveal the purpose of their visit to the house. He did it after the last raid on the house. Seems he was more than a little put out by that. Now if anyone comes looking, he knows what they're looking for."
Remus resumed the story. "We slipped in when one of the guests was leaving, and found the shrine. Luckily we were able to get the charms on the shrine down relatively quickly. Once inside, we collected ash from the hearth stone. And, Sirius realised that the earth in the spell must come from the old well the hearthstone covered."
Harry Ron and Hermione exchanged puzzled looks.
Liz explained, "There was no obvious mention of any water in the incantation that made the spell circle guarding the entrance to the cave under the camp. Odd, but not unheard of in earth magic. But Malfoy didn't need to name the water, because it was hidden in the earth. If we had gone ahead with just using some earth from the grounds, it would not have been as strong and the counter spell might not work. You know that to do a successful counter spell you have to balance all of the elements. We would have been an element short."
"Then what," asked Harry.
Sirius grimaced. "Then we were almost out the door when I saw something flash out of the corner of my eye. Next thing I knew, Malfoy was right there, and could see us. He cursed us, and when we woke up, we were trapped in a holding spell inside of a large empty room in another part of the house. Malfoy was thrilled of course, he had Sirius Black. Could hardly wait to get me down to Fudge. We had an, unpleasant, conversation with Malfoy," he saw Remus blanch a bit out of the corner of his eye, then return Katie's quick reassuring smile quietly; "but he didn't know exactly why we were there. He seemed to think we were gate crashing, trying to spy on his more interesting guests."
Sirius paused for a moment, running his hands through his hair. This is getting close now.
"The good news was at least that we haven't been detected at the hidden camp. At least it was worth it because on top of getting cursed we ended up dropping 10 feet of the edge of a cliff and sliding down the mountainside in the snow; that broke a few things."
Harry spoke up again. "Wait, how did you get out, then?
Sirius looked at Remus and raised an eyebrow. It's now or never; Harry isn't going to like this at all.
Remus decided to take the plunge. "We were let go, actually. By Draco," he said in his calmest, most even tone.
There was an unpleasant silence. Sirius looked at Liz, who sat still, waiting to see what would happen. After a long moment, Sirius decided to continue but before he could say anything, Ron beat him to it.
"Bollocks!"
"Ron! Why on earth would Remus lie about it? And watch your language!" said Hermione.
Ron glared at her. "Get off it, Hermione!" Then he turned to look at Sirius and Remus. "Draco let you go? He must have been put up to it. You were wrong, Malfoy is on to you, and they let you go deliberately, to see what you are going to do."
Remus shook his head. "Ron, Malfoy had us right there. There was no reason at all to let us go, and he made it very clear that he had no such intentions. If he knew we had been in the wellspring, he would have said something. To gloat he'd got the best of us, no doubt."
"You expect us to sit here and believe that Draco, the same Draco who has been so wretched and evil to us over the last few years, suddenly decided to…to…I can't even say it. If I'm going to believe anything it's that Draco was forced to do this. To prove himself worthy of Voldemort's inner circle or something."
"No, Ron. Draco was acting of his own volition on this one. It would appear that he is actually working with Snape. At great risk to himself, I should add."
Sirius risked a glance at Harry, who looked as angry as Ron sounded. Hermione was actually looking rather calm, and seemed more worried that Ron was so upset that he'd gone a dangerous shade of red.
"Look," said Remus, in the steely tone Sirius recognised as meaning he'd had enough and was going to end the conversation now. "We know that he wasn't in fact punished for what happened. I think it's safe to assume that if they were using Draco as a decoy that Lucius would make certain that word somehow reached us that Draco had in fact been disciplined for what happened, in order to make us sympathetic towards him."
Harry ignored the tone. "How can you be so sure?" he asked, in an equally tight voice.
Sirius sighed. "We lost your cloak, Harry, when we were captured."
"I have my cloak, Sirius."
"You do now because Draco returned it to us. Seems his father had given it to him as a Christmas present. Do you honestly think Draco would do something like that for any reason other than to show us that he is in fact honest in his intentions?"
Harry now looked stunned. "So you think that Draco is trustworthy because he sent back the cloak? That's it?"
"No, not entirely. You were not in that room, and you did not see Draco. I realise that this is rather difficult to accept, considering your history with him. I also suspect that this is a somewhat new development. Draco was genuinely frightened, and equally determined to see that we did leave, and with the ingredients we needed to break his father's spell in the camp. That included his own blood. Horrifying as that is, it gives us a very valuable bit of information. Lucius obviously trusts Draco implicitly, and does not suspect at all that Draco feels otherwise. The blood in the spell is key, and he wouldn't put in the blood of anyone he did not believe would never reveal that fact. Or who would willingly give it so that the spell would be broken. Now we have exactly what we need to break the circle without incident."
Harry and Ron stared at Sirius, but they didn't say anything else. Sirius looked at Remus, who nodded at him, then sat down next to Katie. Sirius continued.
"Look, we're not telling you this to annoy you, we're telling you this because you need to know what's happened. We need you to help us with the next part. We need a distraction, one big enough to get attention away from the camp. And the tip off needs to come from an unlikely source, but one that won't be questioned."
Harry let out a snort and put his head in his hands. "You mean Draco. You want us to actually trust Draco to help with something this important? Have you forgotten his track record? What about when he.…" but Hermione reached across Ron to put an hand on his arm to stop him.
"They're not asking you to trust Draco, they're asking you to trust them," she said quietly.
Sirius nodded and gave Hermione a small smile. "Hermione's right, Harry. We need you to trust us on this. Look, I had my doubts about Snape, obviously, but I will admit on this issue I trust him. But nothing else. You need to make the same choice with Draco. I'm not asking you to be his friend. I'm asking you to believe that he doesn't want to see Voldemort regain his power. That's it."
Harry now just looked miserable when he raised his face to look at Sirius. Finally, with a glance at Ron, he replied quietly, "Of course I trust you, Sirius. What do you need us to do?"
Sirius smiled and gave Remus a relieved look. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. It's nearly midnight, so let's just end this discussion for now and try to get a few smiles back on these faces, shall we?"
Sirius was happy to see that all three of them did manage to smile at that. He went over to sit with Liz on one of the large chairs next to the fire as Katie and Remus left the room. Nobody said anything, but it wasn't an awkward silence, but rather everyone just absorbing everything that had just happened.
Remus and Katie came back in with bottles and glasses.
"My favourite muggle tradition. Everyone's old enough to have a glass so Liz and I splurged and bought some appallingly expensive stuff."
Ron took the glass Remus handed him with a smile. "I've never even had the chance to see champagne."
Katie smiled at him. "You should enjoy it. Lovely stuff."
"Shouldn't Malcolm be with us?"
Sirius had to chuckle and patted Ron on the shoulder. "A nice thought, but I don't recommend waking him up when he's not ready for it. Might damage his image of being such a nice quiet baby."
Liz laughed, taking her own glass. "We aren't going to have to sing, are we Katie?"
Katie made a face. "Goodness no. Or if you feel the need, wait until we've had a few glasses. That could at least be amusing."
Remus gave a wicked grin. "Padfoot knows a few amusing songs."
Liz gave Sirius a wink. "I can imagine."
"Thank you. Moony, I think we can do without that. Of course, I doubt that you've forgotten the words to my amusing songs."
They heard the clock chime in the front hall.
"Well, Remus, it's your house. What's the toast to be?"
"Happy New Year."
"That's it? That's the best you can do?"
"I think that about covers it, don't you, Padfoot?"
"Next year I'm in charge of the toast."