EIGHTEEN.

The blood around the wound had coagulated. In the glimmering light, the clots and scabbing flesh looked like a dark creature from fairy tale.

'I guess wild magic wouldn't be very wild if it had spells for disinfecting gunshot wounds,' Sirius Black said. 'Bloody hell, that hurts. I wish I had a wand.'

Harry wished so, too, though it wasn't as if he would be much more use with a wand than he was without. 'That's not really how wild magic works,' he said apologetically. 'There's no spells you can memorise, it's just about figuring things out that feel right with the magic of the place—and I can't figure out how the mine magic might heal anyone. Sorry.'

Black waved him off. 'At least we have fantastic lighting. If I had to suffer in the dark, there'd be no one to watch and feel bad for me, and where's the fun in that?'

'Uh—'

'And a gunshot wound, from a real muggle gun! Damn, I hope it scars. My mother would have had a heart attack.'

Just as he'd said it, his face fell. Harry wondered if he'd only just remembered his mother was dead. Harry knew for a fact she was—he'd read it in Magical Families of England and Wales.

The light from the walls warmed the dank tunnel, but it could not quite erase the chill that had sunk into the floor. Harry didn't really want to sit on it, especially because it would mean getting on the same level as the snouts of the dogs that slumbered beside them, only he wasn't sure his legs could support him if he tried to stand. Though Black had wrapped his shoulder in the fabric he'd ripped from his coat, the scent of blood was so strong that it was making Harry nauseous.

A strange silence appeared, then stretched. A dog snored and kicked out its legs in a dream. Harry tried to think of something to say that would cut through the blank expression that had taken residence over Black's face. It was freaking him out.

'I suppose we could break into one of the houses around here,' he started. 'It will be safer than going to town, and they should have some food there.'

The man acted as though he hadn't heard. Harry reached out to draw his attention, but then thought better of touching him. 'Uh—Mr Black?' So awkward. 'Can you hear me?'

Black startled violently. Harry sat back against the wall, daring himself not to scoot away.

The man stared at him a moment with confusion, then let out a bark of laughter. 'Mr Black?' he echoed. 'You used to just hiss at me to get my attention. It was Mama, Dada, Rem, but you couldn't be bothered to even try with me.'

Harry flustered a little. It was so bizarre to think the man sitting beside him had known Harry when Harry was a baby—that he had cared for him, that he had touched or carried him. It made Harry's skin crawl a little.

'Call me Sirius, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

'What were you saying earlier?'

'Oh, I was just wondering about how we're going to get food.'

Sirius shrugged, unmoved. 'I'm used to eating rats,' he said. 'Not too bad on a dog's palate.'

Harry opened his mouth to point out he couldn't change into a dog and had no intention of getting used to eating rats. He swallowed it down. It didn't sound like Black—Sirius—had been trying to make a joke or be cruel, only like he truly hadn't thought to factor in Harry. He peered at the floor between his folded legs, feeling stupidly hurt.

'What's the plan then?' he asked tightly. 'What are we going to do?'

'Do? Oh—' Sirius gave a laugh. It was chilling. Any time he laughed like that, it made Harry doubt more and more if he'd made the right choice to come here with him. But if he hadn't come— 'I have no idea. I wasn't really planning further ahead than—to be honest with you, I don't think I fully believed you would be real.'

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, so he ignored it. 'I can try to figure out if I can ward off the mine somehow with wild magic. You know, so no one else gets in. And then once I've got back to Durmstrang—'

'You're not going back there.'

Harry stared at him. 'Yeah, I am. Why wouldn't I?'

'No, no, it's not safe for you.' Sirius looked increasingly agitated. He'd pushed himself up the wall to stand on shaking legs. From Harry's vantage point, he looked like a giant, only a remarkably skinny one—like a Dementor would look underneath all that robe, thought Harry, and then tried to unthink it as quickly as he could. 'Peter is still out there—'

'Look, if what you're saying is true, then Pettigrew lived with me in the same dorm for two years,' Harry said reasonably. 'He could have killed me anytime, and now that he knows you're out, I guess he'd have gone into hiding anyway.'

'It is true.'

'Huh?'

'What I'm saying—it is true, Harry. You believe me, don't you?'

Harry didn't know. What he did believe was that Sirius was being sincere. Whether that meant he was an innocent man telling the truth or a murderer who'd lost all touch with reality, Harry wasn't sure.

'I believe you,' he lied. 'But we need to prove it. And we can't prove it if you kidnap me. When I go back to the castle, I will find a way to contact Dumbledore. Maybe he'll know how to find Pettigrew—or maybe he'll at least agree to question you under Veritaserum or something—anyway, he'll help—'

He hoped he sounded more confident that he felt.

'They'll stop you. They'll stop you doing anything.' Black shook his head vigorously. 'You don't know the things they've done, Harry. No one would even know what they did to you—that's why I came here, that's why I didn't go looking for Pettigrew first—maybe they've been holding back, maybe with Dumbledore—but now that you've helped me escape, Merlin knows—you saw what Snivellus—'

Harry's throat went tight and hot. He tried his best to ignore it. 'Look, Karkaroff is a worm, but he wouldn't really do anything to me. And Snape won't—I know what it looked like, but it was—' It was what? Terrifying? Horrible? Disgusting? 'Look, he has some issues, alright? And he thinks you basically killed my mum. And then you kidnapped me, and he was freaked out—what I mean is, sure, he might not believe us, and you should definitely stay away in case, but he's not going to hurt me. Okay?'

No, he wouldn't hurt Harry. Harry rather suspected he wouldn't deign to as much as look at Harry. You didn't come back from something like this, from betraying someone like this, from looking them in the eye before leaving them for dead—Harry had been fairly sure Snape could take the bear once he'd focused, but he hadn't definitely known, had he? So, it counted. He'd left him for maybe dead. He'd chosen instead to protect Sirius Black, his father's best friend—and he didn't even know Sirius Black, he'd never even known his father, so who was he doing it for?

He could not imagine Snape forgiving that. After what had happened, Harry wasn't sure he'd want him to.

'Does Remus know you're such good pals with old Snivellus?' Sirius asked suddenly. 'What does he think of this?'

'Remus?' Harry repeated dumbly. 'Oh, right. Professor Lupin. Uhm, I'm not sure. I've never really spoken to him. I only met him last autumn when he started teaching at Hogwarts.'

Sirius sat back down. He closed his eyes. He looked very tired, Harry thought. 'Hell,' he said. 'Who would have thought Snivellus would be the one to stick it out? James would have a field day about this.'

Harry knew he had to ask. 'My dad didn't like Snape very much, did he?'

Sirius snorted. 'No, well, that's one way of putting it. He hated him. He hated it even more when Lily stood up for him. I think he thought she was better than that. And I think he saw early on what the rest of us only figured out later, when he joined You-Know-Who.'

Harry felt a flare of anger. 'He turned sides though. He started working for Dumbledore—'

'So he did the dirty work for someone else. It's still dirty work.' Sirius glanced at Harry. 'Don't look so upset. I'm just saying it like it is. Old Snive—old Snape clearly loves you like he loved your mother. That doesn't mean he was good for her, and she knew that, you know?'

Harry drove his fingers into his thighs. He pressed his eyes shut tight, tighter, so tight the colours that bloomed from the strain deafened him to his own thoughts.

'He tried to adopt me. Snape.' He drew in a sharp breath. He couldn't believe he was saying it. He'd never said it, ever, he'd never told it to anyone. Not ever Ron and Hermione. 'Or not adopt—kind of. Become my guardian. Foster me. Whatever. It was after first year, when they took me away from the Dursleys and before they founded the committee that's deciding everything now. He wanted to, but it didn't work out. I guess because he's a Death Eater and lives in some dump in a muggle town.'

Beside him, Sirius was quiet. Harry stared at his own feet. It was strange to tell the story aloud. It made what had been a faint memory suddenly real, and the feelings he'd felt then again urgent.

'Did you—did you want him to do that?'

Harry nodded. He didn't dare look at him.

Sirius blew out a whistling breath. 'Well,' he said. 'Wow.' Then, he said, 'Bloody hell, it was strange enough when Lily and James got themselves a kid. Now Sni—Snape's parental instincts are kicking in? We were only seventeen a moment ago.'

It had been all of Harry's life and more since Sirius had last been seventeen.

'Anyway, look.' Sirius cleared his throat. Harry thought he heard tears in his voice. 'I'll find old Snape some kids to take in if he wants them. Call it a test run. We'll raid an orphanage, you and I. And if he ends up melting them all into a potion before the year is through, you'll know you've nothing to feel sorry about. What do you say?'

Despite himself, Harry smiled. 'Okay. That's a really good plan.'

After a while, he got up and told Sirius he would get them some water. He really wanted to see if there was any way he could ward the mine effectively enough to leave Sirius there for a while, and to do so without risking hurting him. He didn't want to tell Sirius that, though. He hadn't appreciated the last time Harry had spoken of going back to Durmstrang, and though Harry was beginning to like him now, he was hardly going to risk making him angry.

The lift brought him back up through the darkness, the ropes screeching and grunting throughout. The walls shook. Harry tried hard not to notice how similar it might have felt to be shut inside a coffin.

The day had gone. The mounds of snow outside glimmered silver in the moonlight. A faint shade of the aurora hung in the air, as though someone had taken its colours and smeared them over the sky, then tried to wipe them off with a wet piece of cloth. Harry found a bowl in the sled that was meant for dogs, and wincing with disgust he filled it with snow, then melted that with magic. He sympathised with Sirius's complaint: wild magic didn't seem interested in sanitation.

Maybe he really didn't have anything to feel sorry about, orphans melted into cauldrons or not. If Snape had managed to become his guardian, where would they be now? Nowhere near Durmstrang, probably. It was the committee who'd insisted on taking Harry out of Hogwarts. Snape would have fought for him to stay. Harry would never have felt the magic of the aurora or seen life move underneath the ice. He never would have met Viktor Krum, or Inna or Danila or Blom. He never would have known that his grandfather had studied squibs or that he was distantly related to Draco Malfoy, awful as that may be. And would he have even met Sirius? If so, would he have saved him regardless, or would he have been too scared to get in Snape's way? Would he have let him kill Sirius, and lived then knowing he'd let it happen, and remembering over and over the way Snape's face contorted with hatred, and thinking but never speaking it because he was stuck—because he was subject fully to Snape's authority?

It was strange. He'd always resented his father for bullying Snape. He'd always thought his father's friends must have been stupid and prejudiced and cruel. Snape didn't talk about it a lot, but when he did, it was obvious to Harry how much he'd hated James Potter. And Harry had always thought he must have had a good reason. He had never considered that perhaps James Potter might have had a reason to dislike Snape, too.

He drank. Magic had made the water tepid. Harry finished the bowl, then filled it again to take down to Sirius. He'd have to do another round trip to bring enough for the dogs.

His stomach hadn't enjoyed the water. He didn't like drinks that were neither hot nor cold. They made him queasy. Coupled with all the emotion of the day, that queasiness went straight to Harry's head, and he rested his hand on the wall of the mine, refocusing his balance—

And then he was shoved face-forward into the snow.

'Don't you dare—don't you dare do it!'

The place he'd been pushed ached. Strangely, he felt that ache before he felt the pain in his lip, which had split open from landing on the edge of the bowl. Blood dribbled down his chin. Red on white.

'You can't—I won't stay—if you lock me here, I'll—I can't—'

Harry rolled over. Sirius hovered above him, face dark, hair stuck together with oil and blood, yellow teeth on show. Reflexively, Harry's hand went to his waist, before he remembered he'd lost his wand.

'You can't leave me here!'

'Okay, okay, I won't—'

Sirius folded in half, then fell to his knees. He was breathing hard, harder, entirely too quick and laboured for comfort. 'I can't breathe,' he whispered. 'I can't—what have you done to me?'

A part of Harry wanted to scream out, nothing! I haven't done anything, I swear—he wanted to plead with him, then kick and run, and keep running until he could no longer see those teeth or that pulsing vein on the forehead smeared with blood. But that wasn't helpful. Harry knew he needed to do better.

'I haven't done anything,' he said, forcing his voice to remain level. 'I promise. I think you're just, uhm, you're just upset, right?'

Sirius gave a weak laugh. His hands were shaking. 'Upset? No way.'

'Just try and—' Harry wanted to say try and breathe, then realised it was a very dumb thing to say to someone convinced he couldn't. 'Do you want some water? I'll melt some more for you. That's what I've been doing. I wasn't trying to lock you down there.'

'You will.'

'No, I—I said I would try to ward it, but I guess that's a dumb idea. I don't know how to do it anyway, and I guess after you've been in prison—uh, anyway, just have the water, okay? I promise I won't lock you up or ward or do anything.'

He helped him drink, tilting the bowl toward his lips. Some of it went down Sirius's chin. 'You're not very good at drinking,' Harry said. 'I bet even when I was little, I was better at it than you are now.'

Sirius chuckled. It sounded horrible, again, but Harry fought not to wince. 'You know you got into my Firewhiskey once? I don't know what I was thinking—it was only going to be a nightcap, after the day I—but still, Lily would have killed me if she knew—'

Harry hummed a fake sound of amusement. His chin itched from the blood.

'You grabbed it off the table and took a good gulp. I guess you'd managed to swallow it before you felt the taste—then you stared at me like I'd betrayed you. You threw the glass on the floor. Scared the cat out of his mind.'

'We had a cat?'

'Yeah—Sniffles, it was called, because—oh, fuck, you're bleeding.'

Nice of you to notice, Harry thought bitterly. He felt bad about it immediately. It wasn't as though he'd be in any state to notice such things if he'd been the one convinced he was going to be buried alive a minute ago.

'Harry—I'm so sorry—'

'It's okay,' Harry said quickly. 'It's just the lip. I'll put some snow on it. It's not your fault.'

Sirius stared at him. He was breathing a little slower now. Harry thought he'd done a rather good job of calming him down. 'You're fully a person now, aren't you?' Sirius said after a beat. 'It's so strange that you're a person now.'

Harry didn't know if he should be offended. 'I guess.'

Sirius gathered some snow up into his palm, then rolled it into a ball. He gave it to Harry to press over his mouth.

'You should go back to Durmstrang,' he said. 'I'm not—hell, I haven't eaten anything other than rats and dog food in years. Even in Azkaban, I'd stopped turning back—it was a ridiculous idea. It was—but I needed to see you. I needed to know you were—I would never have lived this long if I didn't think I would see you.'

Harry couldn't meet his eye. It was too much, to be looked at like that.

'If you say you're safe back there, then I believe you. You seem like you know what you're doing. I just—I'm sorry.'

He was like a broken record, honestly. Harry almost said it. He didn't know where this cruelty was coming from.

'I'll talk to Dumbledore,' he promised. 'I swear, as soon as I get back, I will figure it out—you just have to hide for a little while longer. Maybe leave here, stay away. Don't try to look for Pettigrew. I'll look for him—I'll get lots of people looking, and I swear I'll see you soon. Okay?'

Sirius smiled at him. This smile had no teeth and it had no madness. It just made Harry want to cry.

'I promise,' Harry repeated. 'Do you believe me?'

'I believe you,' Sirius said. It sounded exactly like Harry had said it earlier, and it was how Harry knew he had been more obvious about the lie than he'd realised.