Partnering with Padfoot
“Isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number?” Sirius whispered to himself. He hadn't sat down for a single moment since he’d returned home from Hogwarts. He paced in circles around the open concept floor, speaking his every thought to Buckbeak, as though the hippogriff would answer.
"So we know there are six because the seventh piece of soul is inside Voldemort’s body," Sirius muttered, his head pounding from the overflow of information he'd acquired at his meeting with Dumbledore and Harry.
Harry had successfully persuaded Horace Slughorn into giving him the true memory of what he had discussed with a young Lord Voldemort all those years ago. The horror of a single Horcrux was bad enough, but now they knew that Voldemort had not gone to Professor Slughorn to ask how to make one, but to learn what would happen if someone made several - Isn’t seven the most powerful magical number?
Dumbledore, of course, had been expecting his theory to be confirmed by this memory and was most satisfied. He was positive that Voldemort had succeeded in his goal of dividing his soul into seven pieces. Going further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality and making himself almost indestructible.
Sirius shivered at this thought, pausing at the kitchen sink to fill a glass with water and then gulp it down with a thirst that burned like he had been running track, instead of walking circles around his house. Then he resumed his pacing, taking a very methodological approach to this information. A Horcrux could be destroyed. The diary and the rink were no longer Horcruxes.
“So, that brings us to four,” Sirius spoke aloud, holding four fingers up in front of himself as he walked past the sofa in the living room and caught Buckbeak’s inquisitive eagle eye.
“Now, Dumbledore is convinced that the snake is a Horcrux, which might be the easiest one to find and kill. But it’s also going to be the one closest and most missed by Voldemort, so we need to save it for last. He cannot suspect us too soon.”
Sirius stared at the silver sword set on the dining table with its hilt encrusted with egg-sized rubies. Dumbledore had entrusted the Sword of Gryffindor to him tonight, a finely made replica now hanging in the Headmaster’s study in its place. The sword of Gryffindor only takes in what can make it stronger. Due to Harry killing the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with the sword, it was imbued with Basilisk venom and could destroy Horcruxes.
Sirius picked it up carefully. Never feeling more like a true Gryffindor than when he swiped it through the air and imagined it taking off the snake’s head, hoping that when the time came to do exactly that, Voldemort would be forced to watch the destruction of his final Horcrux. When Voldemort realized that he was mortal again, but with a blemished partial soul. And that there were more of them than him….
Sirius smiled jubilantly to himself at that image as he decided to go upstairs and store the sword away in his bedroom where none of the house’s other occupants or visitors would see it. He pulled out the bottom drawer of his wardrobe and slipped the sword inside. Then carefully locked it in with a charm that only he could break.
“Now, Horcruxes three and four are most certainly Hufflepuff’s Cup and Slytherin’s Locket,” he counted them out on his fingers again, as he strode purposefully back of his bedroom and began down the stairs.
“There’s enough evidence to confirm that Voldemort definitely got his hands on those. Now the real question is whether or not the final Horcrux belonged to Ravenclaw. Dumbledore thinks it’s likely, but he doesn’t have any proof. He surely would have spoken to anyone who might know something. What about the ghosts at Hogwarts? The Grey Lady, I wonder if Dumbledore asked her what she knew of Ravenclaw? I’ll come back to that….”
Sirius brushed his long brown hair out of his face, feeling invigorated and overwhelmed all the same, but mostly excited and with deep resolve to give new meaning to his freedom to choose how he lived his own life.
“Cup, locket, something from Ravenclaw, snake,” he rhymed off. “We know what they are, now we need to figure out where they are. Dumbledore said that the ring Horcrux was hidden in the old ruined shack of Voldemort’s grandfather and now he’s trying to locate the cave Voldemort once terrorized some kids from the orphanage in. Surely, this means that we should investigate any place that has some significance to him.”
Sirius shook his head and guffawed at this pattern. “What an idiot Lord Voldemort is. If it was me, I’d have used a bunch of stones and then tossed them into the ocean. We wouldn’t have had a fighting chance then. Voldemort was too arrogant to think anyone would ever guess about his Horcruxes. And people used to think me and James were arrogant…”
“Okay,” he took a deep breath. “Let’s assume that one is in the cave, the snake is with Voldemort ...could one be at Hogwarts? That’s got to be on everyone’s top five list of most meaningful places. I’m pretty sure that myself and James know more about that castle than even Dumbledore, he wouldn’t have gone wandering the castle at night as a student…if there’s one hidden at Hogwarts, I’d be the one to find it.”
Sirius stalled in his pacing as he was suddenly struck by an idea that had not occurred to him before now. That if there was a Horcrux hidden at Hogwarts, that there was a probable chance that he, James, Lupin, and Pettigrew had once happened upon it and not realized what it was. Could it be possible? It certainly could be. And Sirius felt something cold clench in his lungs as he thought about how much James would have appreciated this mission with him.
“Oi, James,” Sirius spoke loudly, raising his eyes up to the ceiling of his house. “I really got my work cut out for me here. I bet you’re laughing right now because you’ve never seen me take an assignment from any Professor so seriously before - especially since I don't particularly enjoy puzzles. Remember our Quidditch days? You were all strategy and stealth while I flew around wacking the bludgers at everyone. Seriously, if you’ve been bestowed with any of that all knowing wisdom that people maybe get when they die, now would be the time to enlighten me.”
Sirius lowered his gaze and spun around, jumping backwards in shock at the unexpected sight of Severus Snape standing behind him and looking in quite poor form indeed. There were crimson droplets of blood already marking the floor at his feet, evidently coming from the arm he had cradled in the other against his chest. Severus was leaning against the wall with weak knees, but when their eyes met he seemed to muster up the last of his remaining strength in order to comment on the theatrical monologue he had happened upon.
“I think you’ve finally gone completely mad,” he said softly.
“And I think you’d better sit down before you collapse,” said Sirius, his eyes widening in astonishment as he stepped closer and noted that the fabric of the robes that Severus was concealing his injured arm in was completely drenched with blood. “What on earth did he do to you?”
“It isn’t that bad,” Severus replied, though he undermined himself immediately by releasing his firm grip on his arm so that Sirius got a clear view of the whole of it flopping to his side like uncontrollable dead weight. It was as if the channels from the brain to the arm were muffled and the limb could no longer cooperate or move of its own accord.
“Not bad at all,” Sirius said sarcastically, as Severus stared down helplessly at his useless arm.
“I’ve seen him perform this spell on others before and it’s an easy fix,” Severus told him. “I just need to heal the abrasion and then wait for the muscle and nerve ends to recover in a day or so.” He grimaced as he used his left arm to wrap his cloak around the right more firmly to staunch the bleeding. “Will you help me?”
“Of course, I’m going to help you,” Sirius said quickly. “Just go lay down and then I can take a look at it. What do we need?”
“Essence of Dittany should be enough,” Severus said, already staggering over in the direction of the living room on the right side of the house.
“You need more than Dittany,” Sirius replied, as he took out his wand to quickly tidy up the splatters of blood in the entrance before following. “Blood Replenishment?”
“I suppose,” Severus conceded.
“Move, Buckbeak,” Sirius ordered, eyeing the Hippogriff, who bowed his head contritely before spreading his expansive wings impressively and vacating the space just before Severus collapsed onto it.
“Why is he in the house anyway?” Severus asked, leaning into the plush cushions with a sigh of relief.
“If you must know, Buckbeak and I enjoy our ritual of nightly conversation and tea together,” Sirius replied. He kept Buckbeak outside most of the time in an impressive shelter built especially for him, but when Sirius was alone at home he liked him closer. He had not forgotten how Buckbeak’s companionship had saved him from himself during his isolation, back when everything had seemed so hopeless.
“Wait here,” Sirius instructed, watching Severus pitifully pulling his injured arm across his chest to prevent it from dropping off the edge of the couch. “Try not to move so much. I’ll be right back.”
He turned to go collect the potions and medical supplies that they’d need, a sense of urgency overcoming him even though he knew Severus was not in critical condition. The temporary loss of movement in his wand arm was inconvenient and painful, but it wasn’t intended to kill him and Sirius thought that almost made it worse. That with all the evil Lord Voldemort was made of, which even extended to the people who supported him, he still found it in him to be petty. Voldemort, who was capable of and took great pleasure in killing and torturing, sometimes settled just for playing with his followers. He didn’t want to pull Severus out of his service for too long, but he was happy to hurt him all the same just because he could.
“There you go,” Sirius said to Buckbeak, pausing briefly to open the door to outside for the waiting creature.
He then hurried down the basement stairs and straight into Severus’s laboratory which he never had had a good reason to go into before now. He spotted vials of Essence of Dittany and Blood Replenishment on a shelf of neatly labelled potions immediately. He gathered them in his arms, as well as a Pain Reliever that Severus had not asked for but would likely appreciate all the same.
On his way out, Sirius grabbed a jar of salve that he recognized as the strong healing agent Madam Pomfrey had always kept available in the Hospital Wing. In the downstairs bathroom they kept clean bandages and linens. Sirius gathered some up in his arms and then made for the living room, dropping everything onto the ottoman set in front of the sofa as Severus’s resting eyes opened promptly.
“Do you want me to check if it's broken?” Sirius asked, unscrewing the lid of the first potion that was to be drunk.
“It isn’t,” Severus said shortly, apparently well informed of his injuries if incapable of tending to them himself in his present state. He downed the Blood Replenisher instantly and then exchanged its empty vial for the flask of Pain Reliever that Sirius offered. His breath hitched when that potion hit the back of his throat, his first dash of relief. Sirius could tell that he was in far greater pain that he was willing to admit.
“What did he do to you?” Sirius whispered. He could have answered his question with a simple diagnostic spell but preferred to hear it from Severus and respect any parts that he might not want him to know.
“He slashed me and it feels like it’s burning,” Severus explained, though the wound was still concealed in his cloak and Sirius had yet to see the damage. “But then, lower everything is numb. I can’t wiggle my fingers. I can’t hold my wand in my dominant hand.”
Nodding briskly of his understanding, and with his brow creased in concentration, Sirius knelt down on the floor for a closer observation. He lightly tapped his fingers on the base of Severus’s hand when he wasn’t looking. He was checking carefully to see if there’d be any reaction, of which there was none. Severus sipped some more of the pain relieving drought while Sirius pushed down much more firmly, steadily increasing the pressure until Severus finally looked over.
“Do you feel that now?” Sirius asked, concerned that it might have just been a coincidence.
“Yes,” Severus said.
“I’ll take that as a good sign,” Sirius told him. “You haven’t lost all feeling in your hand, but this isn’t a spell that I recognize.”
“It’s not that bad,” Severus said again.
“Don’t lie to me,” Sirius replied.
He sat back on his heels and decided to wait for the Pain Reliever Severus had just drunk to take stronger effect before he did anything. Then he gently and efficiently began to unfasten the clasp of Severus’s cloak for him.
“Tell me if anything I do makes it hurt worse,” Sirius murmured, as he began to undo the buttons down the front of Severus’s robes to remove his clothing in a much more gentle and dignified manner than he had the night he and Lupin had saved his life back at Spinner’s End.
The muscles in the shoulder that Severus still had control over tensed as Sirius pulled his arm from the bloodied fabric. The wound was still bleeding heavily, cut deeply down to the bone and somehow burned along the edges. It hadn’t begun to heal at all and Sirius was wondering to himself if the magic used to heal self-inflicted werewolf bites and scratches would work for this, when Severus turned his head to glance diagnostically down at it himself.
“I don’t like how it looks,” he confessed softly, his confidence in Sirius visibly wavering now that he had seen the full extent of the harm done to him. “Perhaps I should have gone to Dumbledore.”
"I can call him for you if you want, but I can manage this just fine," Sirius replied. "It kind of reminds me of the gashes Remus used to inflict on himself every full moon, before you started making him the Wolfsbane Potion. I became quite proficient at healing magic in order to help him out back then.”
“Well, I suppose I shall take comfort in knowing that you at least practiced on him first,” Severus replied.
Deciding to take that as permission to proceed, Sirius pointed his wand at the deep gash and spoke clearly the incantation, "Mundare Malum", which caused ashy violet smoke to puff into the wound and cleanse it.
Then he set his wand down behind him and picked up the bottle of Essence of Dittany and a clean piece of flannel. With great care and delicacy, Sirius began to dab it in a fluttery motion that spread a thin layer overtop of it all. Working carefully to make sure no area was missed, he allowed it to dry and then repeated the action.
Neither man spoke for several minutes. Sirius kept his head bowed in concentration and Severus had leaned his head against the back of the sofa and was watching the flesh of his badly mutilated arm become less inflamed. The crisp burnt edges were softening with a rejuvenation that seemed non-resistant to this healing magic. Sirius, who had expected it to be far more challenging to heal, accepted now that Severus was right in proclaiming his injuries to be inflicted for no reason more than a temporary inconvenience, however great.
"Do you think that the Dark Lord will ease up on you after you’ve killed Dumbledore for him?" Sirius asked quietly, feeling Severus’s forearm tense automatically at the question.
“You know?" Severus said softly.
"Harry told me," Sirius explained, straightening his spine now that he was satisfied with the application of the Essence of Dittany. "He had some choice words carefully selected for Dumbledore tonight before he'd allow us to view the memory he managed to procure."
“So he did manage to get the memory from Slughorn then?" asked Severus.
"Yes," Sirius nodded, setting the used flannel down beside the bottles. Curious as he was to know how much Severus knew about these secret meetings with Dumbledore, he decided to abstain from asking for the time being as he picked up his wand again. "I just returned from Hogwarts a few hours ago."
“I don’t think I’m going to go back until the morning,” Severus informed him, watching closely as Sirius touched the tip of his wand to the still open wound that had at last begun to settle.
“If I were you, I’d stay longer,” Sirius replied. “At least wait until you can move your hand again. Connexum.”
Sirius kept his wand held very steady, moving it downward at a miniscule pace not intending to break the connection. Severus’s arm had begun to stitch the two halves back together, healing it as one finally. There was potentially going to be a fair bit of scarring, but considering that Severus never bared his arms to anyone, it would hardly seem to matter.
"What do you think about what I’m doing?" Severus asked him, after several long minutes where neither one of them spoke.
It was clear to Sirius that this was not about his arm or spy work for Voldemort, but about agreeing to kill Albus Dumbledore.
“I wish you wouldn’t, but I respect why you will anyway,” Sirius replied. “I spent most of my adult life with everyone believing me to be a notorious mass murderer and I don’t think I would survive a second round of that. Dumbledore has asked way too much of you this time.”
"But you get why I agreed?" Severus asked.
"Of course I do," Sirius admitted reluctantly, his eyes unblinkingly focused as he knitted up the last of Severus’s arm for him. Waiting until the last patch had been sealed before he set his wand down again.
“The Dark Lord will trust me completely once it’s done,” said Severus, almost as though trying to convince himself. “That will be his downfall. It will be over.”
“I’m grateful I know the truth,” Sirius said, raising his head to look Severus directly in the eye. “And I’m glad that you told Harry.”
“If it works out like Dumbledore has planned then it will all be worth it,” Severus said simply.
“I think it will make all the difference in the world,” Sirius assured him, picking up the jar of healing salve now. He unscrewed the lid and then scooped up a generous amount to begin spreading over the closed wound with light fingertips. “And I was thinking that your position will make it possible for you to help me with my work.”
“Oh? What work is this?” asked Severus curiously.
“Dumbledore gave me and Harry a load of information tonight,” Sirius explained. “I’m trying to make sense of it and figure out a course of action because it really holds the key to everything.”
“Let me know how you think I can be of help,” Severus replied, looking bemused as he tried to make sense of his vague words.
“Okay,” Sirius took a breath.
He had to fight hard to resist the urge to tell him everything. Because while he understood why Dumbledore would not tell the truth about the Horcruxes to someone who hung around with Lord Voldemort all the time, Sirius was confident that Severus held some of the answers that they needed without even knowing it. Dumbledore wouldn’t have been pleased if he could see them right now, but he wasn’t going to be around much longer anyway. It was time to start making his own tough calls.
“So essentially there’s some steps that need to be taken if the Dark Lord might someday be defeated,” Sirius began carefully, reaching for a clean cloth to wipe the excess salve off of his hands. “Vol- the Dark Lord put a lot of barriers up ahead of himself so that he truly cannot die. Dumbledore has begun the job of dismantling those barriers in order to make the Dark Lord mortal again, but we need to finish it.”
“Alright,” said Severus, watching as Sirius began to wrap the bandages around his arm to protect it while the magic was left in peace to do its job. The feeling in the limb and ability to move it should be restored imminently, once the muscles had been given a chance to recover from their trauma. This, of course, was how Voldemort had intended it. Whatever had occurred between Severus and Voldemort tonight, no lasting harm had been inflicted. Voldemort probably expected Severus to be grateful to him.
“Scourgify,” Sirius pointed his wand at the sleeve of Severus’s robes to wash the blood from it, recalling so suddenly, out of the blue, as his stomach did a flip flop, of an occasion when he had laughed hysterically while James used that spell to cause Severus to choke and gag on bubbles for their amusement. It had all seemed so funny back then and now it made him want to recoil in shame.
“Was I a passable substitute for Dumbledore?” he asked, in a voice he hoped sounded natural, as he pushed those memories deep into mind and aided Severus to redress in his cleaned and dried robes.
“Considering your medical care was not accompanied by a superfluous speech, it might even be an improvement,” Severus replied. There was a pause and Sirius could tell that he was about to thank him before saying instead, “tell me how I can help with what you’re going to do.”
“Right,” Sirius said, struggling to climb up from his knees now that his legs were a mess of pins and needles from crouching down on the floor for so long. He pushed up on the Ottoman and then backed over to the armchair across from the sofa, on either side of the fireplace that was still blazing with heat.
“So you know how Tom Riddle’s diary was given to Lucius Malfoy?” he began.
“Yes,” Severus nodded. “Lucius was supposed to keep it safe and instead he passed it onto Ginny Weasley to try and keep himself from getting caught by the Ministry with such a dark artifact in his possession. When the Dark Lord learned what he had done - well, Lucius couldn't walk for weeks.”
“But before his first downfall, Lucius was one of his favourite Death Eaters, right?” Sirius pressed on. “I mean, why else would the Dark Lord trust him with such an important and personal object?”
“I don’t think anyone was ever more favoured than Bellatrix Lestrange,” Severus replied, “but the Malfoys were held in high regard during the first war. Not anymore though.”
“The Lestranges, exactly,” Sirius continued on, not giving any consideration or attention to the Malfoys' fall from grace. “If the Dark Lord gave Lucius Malfoy the diary then I think he could have given Bellatrix something valuable to hide and keep safe for him too. If she does have something like that, then I need to find and destroy it.”
Severus looked confused, but to his credit he did not ask for a more detailed explanation than the one Sirius had already disobeyed Dumbledore’s orders to provide. “ I’ve never heard of anything like that…."
“Well, I’m sure these Death Eaters were sworn to secrecy,” Sirius replied. “You were just a kid who’d barely joined up when he disappeared the first time. I'm thinking these would go to more experienced Death Eaters who also had wealth and secure hiding places to share with him- people like the Malfoy and Lestrange families.
“Bellatrix was as livid and disgusted as the Dark Lord himself when it came out how Lucius had treated the diary,” Severus confided. “I think it was one of the only times that Narcissa was genuinely afraid of her sister. Of course, everyone knows that Bellatrix Lestrange is dangerous, but I think Narcissa had somehow thought that she and her family might be the exception to her sister’s ruthlessness. However, Bellatrix’s contempt for Lucius and willingness to sacrifice Draco for the Dark Lord’s service proved that not to be the case.”
“It makes no sense why the Dark Lord would entrust something so important to Lucius over Bellatrix,” Sirius said, leaning forward in his chair, his mind taking in everything that Severus had just shared. “Bellatrix must have something as well. Do you think Narcissa might know of it? You're her friend, she might tell you.”
“If Bellatrix was told to keep a secret for the Dark Lord then it's kept,” Severus said firmly. “She was furious with Narcissa for telling me the truth about the Dark Lord’s plan for Draco. Bellatrix puts the Dark Lord’s word above anything else.”
“But I bet she would have been full of jealousy if she didn't get the same trust as Lucius,” Sirius replied. “And she’d be haughty as hell if Vol- he gave her so much trust and value. Narcissa might know something and not realize it.”
“Well, I’ll go see her soon then,” Severus said simply. “Find out what I can for you.”
“Thank you,” Sirius said, and his heart felt like it was pumping with overzealous force as adrenaline coursed through his veins. Wondering if he really was going in the right direction or completely out of his own head, but at least he was on his way somewhere. Proving to himself, and to Harry hopefully, that even with the anticipated loss of Dumbledore’s wisdom and guidance, they were going to see this to its end. No matter how difficult a task they had been set, it would eventually end. Voldemort would eventually end.