Lucius

Lily and Sev spent the time that they had left talking, at her initiative, about the third person who was now also part of their relationship.

At dusk the next day they entered Hogwarts again. To the damn jail, again, Sev thought.

As soon as they sat down to eat, Sev projected to Lauren, "Lauren, it is urgent that we meet tonight." I'm not telling her anything else at the moment, otherwise she's going to be in pain for hours.

"I was counting on it, Severus, I have to tell you about the meeting," she answered.

Ugh, she has bad news too and she doesn't want to scare me either. "Okay, we'll meet like always."

"Okay."

Sev thought, Luckily, Lily has left me her potions, now that she won't need them anymore, and Lauren has them too, so I don't have to go up to the Haven for them. In fact, unless I have to accompany Lauren tonight, I'm not going to go there until the next trip to Hogsmeade, next week, to prepare everything I bring. I feel bad for Remus, maybe he's running out of potions too by sharing them with Cecile, and I'm not going to be able to help him cast their Fidelius yet. I was too hasty in promising it to him.

That night, tired from the trip, the Slys went to bed early, so Lauren and Sev could meet before twelve. Face to face, separated by the table and the candle, he held out his hand. "Hello, Lauren, how were you at home?"

She gave it to him. "Very well, my parents have been very happy with how things are going for you."

She starts with the good news, so will I. "Well, they are even better. Rush and Covet have joined us."

"Really?" she asked, excited.

"Yeah. And without even speaking to me directly. Jack is fantastic."

"You don't need to tell me, you know I love him."

Good… "Have you consulted with your parents about him? Can you get in touch with him now?"

She was slow to respond. She's confused.Disappointment?For me. Emotion? For Jack.Fear?For the two of us. After looking into his eyes for a few long seconds, valuing what he was transmitting to her, deep selfless love, she lowered her eyes. Well, at least she's thinking about it. He squeezed her hand to encourage her to make up her mind and to let her know they wouldn't lose each other over it.

After a long minute she looked at him again very sure of herself and said, "Yes, they gave me permission, but I will wait until you are out of danger."

Just what I expected, Sev thought. Willing to risk herself to get me rid of the burden, but never me. I will never be able to reciprocate her as she deserves, I hope Jack knows how to live up to her and does it, and she'll be happy.

"You rule," he said.

They smiled sadly.

"I see you brought me things," she said.

Sev was carrying the copies his mother had made about Ancient Magics, and Petunia's Muggle notebook where he had written down the lyrics of the Pink Floyd song. "Yes, but I prefer to leave them for later, to end the night well."

"I also bring you something. I'll leave it for later too."

Wow, that's right, she's carried the backpack down, he thought. "We better go with what is urgent. Who begins?"

"Mine is not so much. Start."

"Okay, please don't be scared, because it's quite serious. Lily knows that it is you who is helping me."

"Since when?" Lauren asked, alarmed.

"Since the beginning."

"And she hasn't told you until now?"

"She didn't even think to do it, I guessed it from a comment she made to me," Sev replied.

"Has the Guard read her?"

"No, I would never have allowed it. It was one of the conditions that I put on them, that I was in charge of the Gryffs."

"But they have learned from each other. Someone may have found out," she said.

"No, Lauren, don't worry about that. Lily used the Pensieve."

"And she would not have told her friend?"

"Neither. She was aware that she must keep the secret," Sev answered.

"And she saw Dumbledore before the shield thing happened?"

"No, Lauren. Because we had our own secrets and she knew he could read her."

"But he could have appointed her. Was she not aware of the danger she was putting me in by not knowing how to occlude?" Lauren asked.

"By then she was still quite thoughtless. She never found herself in difficult situations until the shield thing happened."

"Did you check before holidays if she already occludes well?"

"No, I did not do it," he replied. "I was instructing her when we met at night and we didn't have a Pensieve there, so I never read her thoroughly, and then I delegated to her to train the Gryffs. It was my fault."

"It hasn't been, if you didn't know anything, you had enough with the Slys. When you told her about me, did you do it as I told you?"

"Yes, to the letter, and I only let her read it once. Then I burned the note."

"So... how did she guess it?" she asked.

Ugh... She's going to end up feeling guilty, at that moment she didn't realize anything, she was watching me and Slughorn, Sev thought. "Because she carefully observed your reaction during the Potions row, I was the one who asked her to do it. She realized that you felt guilty and sorry and she deduced what you felt. When I passed the note to her later and she learned that you were endangering your own family, she understood that it could only be you. She's very intuitive."

"Of course… much more than me. I let you give her too much information. Why hasn't she told you until now?"

"Because I have avoided talking about you with her as much as possible and she was afraid of putting me in a bind."

"Well… we've all been partly to blame," Lauren said. "Me for giving myself away like that in Potions, it was the worst blunder of my life. You for giving her the information that I allowed you knowing that she had realized everything, and she for not confiding in you."

Okay... at least she doesn't blame herself entirely, because she isn't guilty at all, Sev thought.

Lauren thought for half a minute and said, "The best thing will be for me to check that she occludes well and teach her if she still doesn't get it.So you won't have to meet again, as we had planned."

Again what I expected, she taking risk instead of me, but it's the best way, she will do it faster and better.

"Have you told her that perhaps the two of us should contact?" Lauren asked.

"Yeah."

"And what does she think about it?"

"She is dying to meet you," Sev replied.

"Despite what she knows?" very puzzled.

"Yeah."

She stared at him for several long seconds, amazed and expectant, still not daring to ask. When she did, it was out loud, changing the tone to confidential. "And yours? Has she guessed it too?"

"She has."

"And even so…?" Lauren asked, visibly astonished.

"Yes, Lauren. She loves you very much, because without you I would never have gotten out of the hole. She is also very generous and selfless. And there is something else apart from all that. I'll explain it to you later."

"Sure. Now we have to solve this. Do you get to project to her in the Great Hall?"

"I do."

"Wow... you're a wonder, Severus."

"She also to me, and with her back turned."

"Of course… she is also exceptional," Lauren said. "Very good. Then let her know at breakfast tomorrow that I'm going to project to her to give her an appointment, if she can, on the lunch break. I know a place that is relatively safe for two girls. When she makes sure that she can do it without risk, that she confirm it to you and you project to me so that I can communicate with her."

"Where do you plan to meet her, Lauren?"

"There is a girls' bathroom on the fourth floor where a ghost lives, Moaning Myrtle, who is annoying and nobody ever goes there."

"It doesn't seem safe to me, you can't walk around the castle with the Pensieve in broad daylight. I have a much better solution," Sev suggested.

"Which?"

"We have been meeting at night in a Fidelius that we have in the fifth floor, in a very remote and little-frequented place."

"Have you conjured a Fidelius inside the castle?" she asked, very surprised.

"Yeah. At the end of last year."

"Wow… Severus. You will never cease to amaze me."

"And we also have a Pensieve, Lily bought it in Diagon, maybe right now she's taking it there."

"Wow... But you should reveal the secret to me."

"Of course," he said. "I'll explain where it is and I'll write down what you have to think to enter. Or I can even walk you there tonight when we're done."

Lauren was thinking. "Only you two know it, right?"

"Yeah. Lupin also knows where it is, but not the secret."

"I do not like the idea. I think it'd be to invade your space."

"Come on, Lauren, don't talk nonsense," jaded. "It's the safest way."

"I don't want to. We can also go to your clearing in the Forest."

"That is much riskier, Lauren."

She was thinking again. Sev also thought, She is overwhelmed, she does not want to go to the Haven and I think it's normal, it is our intimate space and she does not want to imagine us there.How difficult…

"Maybe it will be enough to meeting once to check that she occludes well, I prefer to do it in the clearing," Lauren finally said.

"Well… I understand. But in that case you won't have time in the break after lunch, you'll have to go in the afternoon, after school."

"For me there is no problem."

Sev thought, And Remus and Cecile can cover Lily, it won't rain tomorrow and they can go for a walk. But they shouldn't see Lauren, let's see how they do it. In the end we have brought the Pensieve for nothing, and Lily and Remus staying up late and risking walking around the castle at night. Ugh… "Well, I'll project to her tomorrow at breakfast to find out if she can go there safely."

"Thank you, Severus."

"Don't thank me. We have put you in trouble and we have to get you out. Now we are all three in the game."

They smiled at each other.

"Well, now that we know we're not going out tonight, it's time to take the Stimulant," he continued. "I need at least an hour to tell you everything."

"Okay, then we'll take for two hours, unless today you also want to practice Legilimency."

"No, today we are going to dedicate ourselves only to the news."

"Okay then."

They took their doses for two hours.

"It's my turn," Lauren said. She held out her hand and he took it. "Don't be scared either.I'll start with the bad, but then there's good." She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand very hard, becoming very serious. "Bellatrix has become obsessed with you."

"What…?"

"What you're hearing." Lauren was breathing deeply. "What she imagines doing to you is so strong that my parents didn't even want to convey it to me by projecting, but the fact is that she has been insisting to Malfoy since Christmas to make the appointment as soon as possible."

"Booaaah… So, why hasn't he done it?" Sev was trembling.

Lauren was regaining calm. "Here comes the good news. Malfoy knows her very well, and even though he couldn't read her, he imagined what she was going to do to you by her insistence, so he has been putting off the date as much as possible trying to protect you. And anticipating that she would read him, he has learned Occlumency with Narcissa. In fact, my parents couldn't read anything else about you in his mind at the meeting, other than what they already knew until Christmas, and they realized he was occluding."

"So... how could they know?"

"Because, reading Bellatrix and sensing the reason why Malfoy was occluding everything related to you from that moment on, they made another appointment with him in private and they probed him talking, telling him that I knew you and that they were surprised that you wouldn't have been appointed yet having him talked about you since Christmas. They did it with such cunning that they managed to get him to trust them without having to give themselves away."

"Ugh, Lauren… your parents took a risk for me." I already have nineteen friends, Sev thought.

"Don't worry about that, let me continue telling you. Malfoy told them that he had already figured it out by your answer in Christmas, in which you lied to him that you were behind in your studies, that you don't want to join Voldemort. Even so, he has no choice but to send you the letter, because he screwed up talking about you in public without consulting you first, but he is going to warn you not to accept the appointment."

"Oh… "

"He is taking a risk for you, loves you very much, and has realized the mess he is involved in," Lauren concluded.

"Lucius…" Tears welled up in Sev's eyes. I never thought I would cry for Malfoy. I already have twenty. "Can anything be done to help him?"

"He's already caught, Severus, at least he's got a good place on the ranks. I suppose that everything will be left in competition between the two of them, because, as I told you, it will not reach Voldemort's ears. In addition, my parents also realized that he occluded what he thought of him in front of them, and by making comments like that he had done well not to let Narcissa be marked and that they had not done it themselves, they got him to confide in them that as well. He collapsed, he is desperate."

Sev looked down. "And all because ofme..."

"No Severus, he brought it on himself. My parents asked him to let them read him and they confirmed everything he had told them orally, they are going to try to help him in any way they can. Of course, they did not tell him that we are already aware of the maneuvers, so he is going to send you the letter anyway, which now yes, you must reject without opening it, also for him. He has not warned you with more time for not putting you at risk and because he already deduced that you would be trying to get rid of it on your own."

"We are already six good warriors in the Guard. I could disassociate myself now and stop him from doing it."

"Do you have a project to be more?" Lauren asked.

"We do. Jack told me that he had found a way."

"Then wait a bit. He is going to send it to you at least fifteen days before the appointment, to give you time to prepare."

"Ugh... So we have less than a month left, and I can't tell them," Sev said.

"Yes you can. Invent that you have read some snake of our year more deeply, we know the exact date."

"Really?"

"Yeah. My parents read it in Malfoy," she replied. "May 15th, Saturday, at breakfast, so that being the weekend you have time to resort to Slughorn or Dumbledore or leave school if you have to."

"Merlin… Lucius…"

"He is also a cunning snake."

"He must be suffering so much…" he said.

"Don't worry, as soon as you uncover yourselves he will find out from my parents that you are safe."

"Yeah… but he… and Narcissa…"

Lauren shook her head. "My parents are going to instruct them correctly in Mental Arts, so that they can resist whatever is necessary."

"So many people in a mess because of me."

"No, Severus, that's where you're wrong, he was the one who got you into trouble, now he has to pay for it. And don't worry about my parents, for them it's a great feat, they can finally do something effective against Voldemort. They also want to fight however they can, we all make a great team. And having someone opposed to Voldemort so far up the ranks can prove essential. And now at least they are not so alone, there are already four of them, the two couples."

"And Bellatrix didn't get to read him before he learned to occlude?" Sev asked.

"Impossible to know. She also occludes."

"Ugh…"

"But we suppose not, because she would have taken some step against him," Lauren continued. "He was cunning and made the excuse that I already told you that he didn't want to come to Scotland in bad weather."

"Merlin... I never would have imagined Malfoy taking a risk like that for me."

"I already told you that he is not so bad and that he loves you very much. You were like his little brother while you were together at school, and now he feels guilty for having dragged you along."

"Oh… I never saw him like that, I always thought he paid attention to me because of my talent," he said. "In due time, when it is safe, I want him to know that I am very grateful to him for what he has done, and also to your parents."

"Sure, Severus. My parents already know that very well and he will know it too when you're safe."

More and more people getting into trouble for protecting me, Sev thought. "Buah… I don't see the good news anywhere. This has finished knackering me."

"Well, for you they are good. You have, we have, Malfoy on our side, who was your contact while you are at school. That assures you that he will not bother you again, nor will he insist that the rest of the snakes do it, for some reason they haven't done it for months."

"Sure…"

"And of course, his initial idea that you join Voldemort's cause to strengthen it, has taken a one hundred and eighty degree turn, now he wants you to be on the other side to defeat him," she added.

"Oh…"

"Someone else whose life you have changed. It's not such bad news."

Sev thought, Lucius… poor guy. How old is he now? Twenty. Bloody Voldemort must be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise he still has a lifetime of slavery ahead of him, and even then… maybe Azkaban.