Sirius sighed. He and Severus had been looking for Harry and Draco for three months, and they were still no closer to finding out where Abraxas had taken them. "This would be easier, a lot easier, if Narcissa, Lily, or Gawain were around. Then, we could use some sort of blood magic combined with a locating charm."

Severus raised an eyebrow at his brother. "You might actually be on to something there, Padfoot. We haven't been thinking like Marauders lately. To combat the type of secrecy and power we're dealing with here, and we know Abraxas is extremely powerful, we're going to have to be inventive." Severus took a long sip of the tea he'd been drinking while poring over the Malfoy property papers. "You're right in saying that blood magic, though it's one of my specialties, wouldn't work here. For one thing, I didn't come up with the Marauder Code by myself. Lily and Remus were instrumental in coming up with some of the finer points. The rest of you were hopeless at it. Hermione is good at potions, better than I am, but she's no match for Harry and Draco when it comes to practical applications, and I won't let her attempt any more blood magic. Potions made with blood magic are extremely volatile. The only person I trust with that type of potion is Harry, and that's only because I've seen him work. He singlehandedly altered he and Hermione's version of the Marauder Code while she was with her parents. Draco was around, of course, but he didn't come up with the original version or the alterations."

"Too bad Harry's the one we're looking for…" Sirius muttered.

"That is one of the major pitfalls of that plan, yes. The other point is that you need very close blood relatives in order to use those spells for location. Hmmm…" Severus got up suddenly and walked over to his bookshelf. He set a huge book down in front of his brother. "This book is currently illegal in every, and I mean every, magical community around the world except for two tiny villages, one in Albania, one in deep in the Amazon rainforest."

Sirius' jaw dropped. "Not that I need to ask, and I probably shouldn't just in case the Ministry finds out about it and asks me, but…how in the name of Merlin did you get that, Sev?"

Severus grinned at his brother. "When I took it, I was doing the world a service. It had come to my knowledge that, during my time as a Death Eater, Voldemort was in possession of this book. I took it from him before he was able to do much damage with it. It holds the spell that he used to resurrect himself. The second half of the book delves into the deepest and darkest spells. One needs to be completely immersed in the Dark Arts or have the ability to read a combination of Parseltongue and a very ancient form of Mesopotamian writing to be able to even want to read those spells." Severus shuddered. "Voldemort could definitely read them, and I know Dumbledore did. Some of the spells that he threw at Harry and Hermione before they defeated him were found near the end of this book. It's for the first half, though, that I'm willing to chance the English Ministry of Magic finding out I have it here."

Sometimes, Sirius wondered what went on in his older brother's mind. Sirius had been second in their year at Hogwarts, but that was mainly natural talent. He never studied much, and didn't open up books unless he had to. Severus, on the other hand, was thoroughly an academic. Research and experimentation were key elements of Severus' life, and only Hermione and Harry's combined book selection was larger than his collection. "Do tell, Severus…what's so special about this illegal book that you're willing to risk spending the rest of your life soulless, now that they've got lethifolds guarding Azkaban?"

"Love Magic…the reason it's illegal, I think, is because there are only two people powerful enough perform these spells right now. There would be five, but since you and I are blood related, and Abraxas is far beyond evil, only Harry and Hermione fit the criteria. Love Magic requires two very powerful people who are not related by blood, that are in love to perform the spells together. The only spell that can be performed by one caster in this book is a very powerful location charm. I was hesitant to suggest this because Hermione is the guardian of Calista and Honoria, but I don't think we have any other choices. We've looked in every Malfoy vault, including Abraxas personal vault…"

"We only got in there because the goblins 'accidentally' gave that to Harry when Ariana died, and Hermione has permission to go into all of Harry's vaults." Sirius grinned.

Severus grinned back. "That proves we're not turning into stodgy old men, doesn't it? The point is, though, that we couldn't find any properties we didn't already know about. We tried every secrecy spell on every parchment slice we could find in all six of the vaults Abraxas still holds. We've tried potions, charms, defense spells…every legal spell in the book. We've got to take the risk now."

"I just hope we're not missing simple clue that's right in front of our noses. That's always how it is with us, you know." Sirius' face turned dark as he listed all of the times they'd failed to notice something was right in front of their noses. "During Seventh Year, we knew Wormtail was spending less and less time with us. James, Remus, and I knew he was sneaking out at night. You and Gawain missed seeing him at the Death Eater meetings you were forced to attend. We also knew something was weird when Dumbledore forced Lily and James to live in Godric's Hollow when there were plenty of places they could safely stay. He purposely split us up. We also should have known something was weird when we suddenly started hating each other's guts. I should have know Dumbledore would take Harry from us, and taken him with me that night. We knew Dumbledore was crazy, but we let Remus go around by himself. Yeah, Moony was one of the top twelve most powerful wizards alive at the time he was killed, but being a werewolf takes its toll on people. You and Minerva should have noticed something weird was up when Hermione left here. You knew Hermione well enough at the time to know she wouldn't have left Harry or Hogwarts without careful deliberation."

"Are you finished blaming yourself for things that happened when you were seventeen, Sirius?" Severus shook his head. "It doesn't do any good to sit around and dwell on things we can't change. You can do wonderful things with a time turner, the fact that you're sitting here is proof of that, but once people die, you can't bring them back to life. Trust me, I sit around thinking about all of that stuff, too. I'd like nothing better than to sit around here, with a cup of tea, and discuss the finer points of the Wolfsbane potion with our sister and I'd give anything to give Harry more than three years with parents…but we can't. We can't do anymore than take the events that happen in our lives as they come and try to do our best."

Sirius nodded. "I'm sorry, Sev. I guess I'm trying to find a useful outlet for grief. You know, maybe our problem is that, not only do we keep everything bottled up inside, but we've never gotten to properly grieve for anyone. After Lily and James died, we had to deal with everything alone. I was in Azkaban, you were here at Hogwarts, Remus went crazy, Gawain was in Canada. When Remus died, Harry's grief over losing Ron was more important than our personal feelings. Now, we're so caught up in trying to find Harry that we haven't been able to grieve properly this time either."

"Don't forget that in the past, most of our choices were easy. It was either do the right thing or die. Now, things are more ambiguous. We don't know what we're fighting this time. We don't know how powerful Abraxas is, or even why he took Harry and Draco in the first place."

"I do." Hermione walked into Severus' rooms carrying one of her tiny sisters-in-law. "I've been listening to you two the whole time. I know what spell you want me to do, Severus, and I'd willingly do it, but I can't right now. I won't be able to do it for at least another six months, and I don't think we can wait that long. Harry and Draco are already weakening mentally and physically. Abraxas only feeds them when he thinks about it…he's suppressing their magic, too. The last time I talked to them, Harry felt that they had another two or three weeks, at most, before something catastrophic would happen to him and Draco. You can't suppress that much magic and not have it do something terrible."

"Hermione, the only reason you couldn't do that spell is if you're…"Severus felt like banging his head on the table."Women who marry into the Malfoy family decide to have children at the absolute worst times." He and Sirius shared a look. Despite the risks, and the potential cost, the two of them had promised Lily that they would do whatever they could to take care of Harry. They weren't going to let him die while they were still alive. They had fought too long and too hard,…Severus and Sirius were going to have to attempt to do the Love Magic spell.