Winter Sunlight

    A Prologue

    "Checkmate," she said, her breath tickling his bare chest, and the young man frowned at the chessboard. She knew there really was no way out of the quagmire he had dug himself into. His queen was only the final casualty of the furious battle that had cost him almost all his pieces, while she retained most of hers.

    They lay entangled against each other on his lumpy single, the chessboard lying on a little empty space they'd managed to clear beside the pillow on the white sheets. Empty glasses, tinged red with the dregs of wine, sat beside the chessboard. He shifted the board around, trying to see things from a different perspective. She knew it was futile.

    She looked up from where she rested her head against his chest, and reached out with her hand and smoothed his frown, etched deeply on his forehead. He absently spooned against her cold body, occupied with thought. He draped an arm over her bare midriff, and she reveled at the feel of his body, emanating warmth from within.

    Apparently he saw something in her face, because he smiled before kissing her shoulder and reaching out with his other arm to gently lay his king on its side. At his surrender, she rolled around to face him, resting her face on her hands. He tucked her white golden hair, hiding her face from his eyes, behind her ear. She raised an amused eyebrow, and he leaned over and began trailing kisses along her pale brows. She closed her eyes, and gave herself to the fire that swept her away.

    Though the night was short, when they had sated their passion, they did other things together. Wizard's chess was a favorite pastime, though she was easily able to defeat him time and again. It was strange that the young genius, who had been able to outwit the Dark Lord himself, to be such a poor player at the game. But real life, as she well knew, was very different from moving carved pieces on a checkered deck.

    Or they read, lying side by side or entwined together - sometimes he read to her in his husky baritone, or her to him. It didn't matter what book it was, because he apparently loved to just hear the sound of her voice, as she liked to hear his. But they seldom conversed, neither of them being an accomplished speaker. She was sparse with her own words, and he had apparently lost whatever adroitness of speech he'd possessed during the war and the years following.

    Very rarely, when one of them had a craving, they talked. Certain topics were off limits, like all their other agreements by unspoken mutual consent. Family was one. The war was another. The past was the third, and their relationship - and the future - was the fourth. And he shined brilliantly in his rare moments of poetic eloquence, like when he'd described the sound of her voice "as clear and ringing like the tinkle of water running through a stream, but cool, like the depth of the clear lake on a cold winter's day."

    She'd been flattered - even more so, when she realized that it had been spoken from the heart. It seemed that every word he spoke, he did so with candor and true belief behind them. So used to deceit and double meanings behind every nuance, she was sometimes astonished at how open and vulnerable his heart was. The rest of the time, she cherished it.

    But in the end, it didn't matter. Because here they were nothing but Narcissa and Harry, and there was no world to face at dawn, or friends and family to meet and greet, or mutual acquaintances to fool and lie to. Here they were safe, and protected, and with each other. And it was enough.

    She moved silently, slipping into the clothes that had been cast away at the foot of the bed. She smoothed her gown and fastened the silver clasp of the cloak. Perhaps it was the click of the brooch. Perhaps he'd simply woken up. But as always, she could tell when he went from the lazy sprawl of sleep to the sharp alertness of full wakefulness. There was no middle ground for him. She turned to look at him, gazing at her with his brilliant green eyes, and sometimes she was afraid that her heart was laid it bare for him to see.

    He never took his eyes away from her as she glided over to kiss him. As the lips met, he reached out with thinly muscled arms to gather her into his arms, but she gently pulled away. Sometimes it wrenched her heart, to see the image of the pale emaciated young man with big eyes, forlorn and lost with her gone. But she resisted the impulse to stay, as she had resisted asking him to stay, when he would leave her bed at the crack of dawn.

    "Good bye, Harry," she said to him, turning to take a last look at him from the doorway.

    "Good bye, Narcissa," he replied, and she gently closed the door behind her.

Winter Sunlight

Chapter 3 : The Abyss Staring Back

    "Harry!" someone called to him from behind, and Harry turned. Neville was hurrying up to him from Sirius' office, and he slackened his pace. Neville quickly caught up to his shorter friend, and they walked side by side down the winding corridors of the division of aurors. They walked with the easy familiarity of old friends and the unconscious vigilance of old companions-at-arms, when every step and every corner could be a waiting invitation to a sudden, violent death.

    "I passed by your flat last night," said Neville, and Harry faltered a step. Neville strode on, and he had to jog up to catch up to him. The medieval stone walls flashed by as they strode rapidly down the corridors, passing closed doors and grim looking aurors hurrying back and forth.

    "What's going on, Harry?"

    He sighed, knowing this wouldn't - couldn't - go over well. Too many old memories, too many old grudges, and Bellatrix Lestrange was her own sister.

    "Does Sirius know?" he asked instead. Neville glanced at him, then shook his head no, and he inwardly let out a breath of relief.

    "Don't think you're off the hook so easily, mate," Neville said, somehow noticing his relief. "If you can't give me a good reason...."

    "What if I can?"

    "Then I don't know," Neville admitted honestly, and Harry was grateful for his candor, if not happy about the answer. They turned a few more corners together in silence.

    The new auror headquarters was a maze - literally. The war had decimated every ministry office, and raids had been carried onto the ministry grounds itself, especially the aurors. The new buildings were designed to confuse the unwary intruder. More often than not, it confused its occupants. He supposed it must make some kind of sense to locate the head of the organization away from his seconds-in-command. Though he'd never quite figured out why it had to be this far apart.

    "You don't seem so well either," Harry commented off-hand, rounding one of the endless corners. "Something come up? Run into an old flame or something?"

    There was a strange look on Neville's face for a moment, a mixture of apprehension and amusement and despair. Then he frowned and shook the expression off his face. "It's not important. But I didn't hear your good reason yet."

    Harry walked on, thinking. How could he explain that all was right when he was with her, that the cares and burdens of the world fell away from his shoulders? When he didn't know why, himself. Sometimes he wondered whether he was under some spell. Or maybe it was the most natural magic of all. What he knew, he thought caustically, was that he knew nothing for certain.

    "I really cant explain," he admitted, coming up to their offices.

    "Then why the hell...."

    "Because I don't know!" Harry exclaimed, then calmed down, continuing in a calmer voice. "Because I don't know. But I want to find out where this road ends."

    "Even if it runs you headfirst off a cliff?" asked Neville, smirking in amusement. But Harry noticed that it didn't quite reach his friend's eyes. "Even if it's all a lie? It's happened before, you know. Women are the bane and downfall of all mankind."

    "Just let me be, Neville," he said in exasperation. "I can handle it."

    They stopped at the doors of their respective offices, facing each other. Neville let out an exasperated, yet amused breath. The corners of his lips twitched. "You are hopping mad, Harry James Potter."

    Harry managed a grin. "You always knew I was."

    "Fine. Be that way." Neville opened his door, and threw across his shoulder, "Sirius wont hear it from me. But don't ever say that I didn't warn you."

    "Thanks, Neville."

    Neville humphed, and slammed the door closed. Harry looked at the closed door, and sighed.

    "Because even if it's lie, it's so worth it."

    *    *    *

    The letter was written in a neat, clear hand, addressed to Neville Longbottom, Division of Aurors. The envelope was of the expensive kind, the kind of things rich people bought for their own personal use, complete with signature markings and crest. Neville crushed the letter, unopened, and threw it into the trash bin. Almost as an afterthought, he set it on fire with a muttered spell from his seat, and watched the lazy smoke rising.

    What was it about her? He'd managed to avoid running into her at the flat, though it had been a close call sometimes. It almost seemed as if she was on the lookout for him - but he mentally shook his head. She surely had better things to do with her time. Though apparently not so much that she couldn't send letters. He hadn't opened any of them, except the first, and they'd burned in the bin along with all the rest. Still he remembered her - the shockingly blue almond shaped eyes on that oriental face, framed with short black hair. But he hadn't made the mistake of getting emotionally attached to people around him for years. He wasn't about to start now.

    He sat back in his chair and turned his attention back to the closed folder lying on his desk, filled with the reports submitted by various aurors, himself included, about the murders. There was something in here that they were missing...something that could help crack the case wide open. He just knew it. If Harry was all about logic and thinking his way in and out of a quandary, then he was all about the sixth sense and intuitive headlong jumps that somehow found him on his feet. Staring at the report, he willed the offending passage to leap forward. But the folder sat still, yellow cover staring balefully back at him.

     Sighing, he shoved the report aside and opened the daily surveillance reports on Death Eater families. He quickly ran through the reports, having gained much proficiency in perusing the reports for the important details in the past weeks. People - probably he himself included - were astonishingly consistent in their activities and patterns.

    Of course, the filing system Hermione had invented before she'd left the division was nearly perfect for the job. So it was only a matter of time before he arrived at highlighted portion of a rather interesting report. He stared at the passage, something tugging at the back of his mind. He waited patiently, reading the passage over and over, for the thought to surface.

    And then it hit him like the blow of a stupification curse.

    *    *    *

     "The money," Neville said, and Harry stared at him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sirius do the same. What on earth his friend was talking about, he didn't have a clue. Then again, they'd been pretty much clueless since the whole damned business started.

     "The money?" repeated Sirius, half in question but mostly in disbelief. But the corner of Neville's lips curled in a familiar smirk, and Harry recognized the look on his friend's face. The look of surety when you simply know that the quaffle leaving your fingers will go right through the rings, and no number of keepers could make it otherwise. He slouched slightly in his chair, trying to guess where Neville was going.

     "Why take the money?" Neville asked his audience. "It's a professional job - smooth entry, smooth exit, zero evidence. If the murderer was simply after the money, no need to kill. So why take the money?"

     "Not because they needed it," replied Sirius morosely. "We've been down this road before, Neville. We don't have a motive on the case. The actions are deliberately - or not - random. Unless someone can come up with a decent pattern."

    "But it doesn't matter, does it? Because the money's gone!"

    "So?" asked Harry, sitting up slightly in his chair. He was getting a vague idea of where all this was going, but not enough to give him a clear picture.

    "Well, if the money disappears, then it stands to reason that someone must have spent it, somewhere, sometime," he reasoned. "So we only have to keep our eyes open for someone who made a large cash transaction."

    Harry could understand the reasoning behind the argument, if skeptical about applying the theory into practice. How do you track down the cash transactions of a criminal, when you don't know where and when and how he'll spend the money? It was an impossible task - better they set up guards in every wizard home until it gets broken into.

    "How do you suggest we do that?" Sirius voiced Harry's own skepticism on the matter. Then again, Sirius had a note of hope in his voice, that Neville wouldn't come up with such a wild idea without the means to carry it through. "We can't work through Gringotts - it's all cash. And even if we could, they make thousands of large-scale transactions a day!"

    Neville grinned. "We don't have to do a thing. Take a look at this." He threw the surveillance report on the desk.

    The others gathered around the report, and the highlighted passage. In it, one Avery Nott Junior made the purchase of a very nice cottage in the country. A very nice cottage. A very nice cottage with a price tag that young Mr. Nott, with his Death Eater father's fortune stripped from him, could ill afford. Harry exchanged a look with Sirius, with Neville smirking over them.

    "Call the team in," announced Sirius. "It's damned worth investigating." They nodded.

    "He's running, sir. Right through the bloody forest. Won't get far, though. We've got anti-apparation wards set in a three mile radius, and people patrolling the air."

    "Who's in the house?" Sirius asked.

    "His mother, sir. Along with his wife. We've taken them into custody, of course."

    Sirius nodded. "Excellent, captain. Carry on." Running was paramount to an admission of guilt, they all knew. It seemed that Neville's hunch had hit the nail on the head again. The three looked at each other and smiled grimly.

    "Gentlemen," Sirius said to his two companions. "Care for a hunt?"

    *    *    *

     The wild forest was a treacherous place, especially at night. With hidden roots and potholes to trip and break an unwary ankle. With low hanging branches to slap into face and throw a runner onto his back. With bushes and undergrowth to leap over or veer around. There really was no clear path, but for a few animal tracks. And the thick trees made excellent cover for ambushes or just plain hiding.

     Neville loved it.

    He leapt over the low bushes at a run, not breaking pace. Ahead, he could hear Sirius' panting breath and low growl as he dashed through the woods, keen on the scent. Overhead, he imagined he could hear the rush of wind as Harry skimmed the treetops, flying in that daring, devil-may-care way of his. The Three Furies, hounding their prey. Oh how the Death Eaters had dreaded them. How many dark wizards had been hunted to their deaths, in such places where Mother Nature ruled supreme?

     Loud barking and a cry filled with pain up broke out ahead. Grinning savagely, he broke through the cover of trees into a little clearing, where he could make out the shape of a figure rolling on the ground, struggling with a large black dog. The man gave a high-pitched cry of pain as sharp teeth sank deeply into a shoulder, and Sirius shook him around like a rag.

     "The game's up, Nott," he said, pointing his wand at the figure, who was pressing a hand against his shoulder, grimacing in pain. Sirius backed away, but stayed within range of an easy jump - and kill, if necessary.

     Behind him, there was a soft thump as Harry landed, and the man paled even further when he saw the flashing scar under the pale moonlight. People had escaped from Sirius before. People had even evaded Neville. But no one had ever escaped from the Boy Who Lived. Not even Voldemort himself, in the end.

     As the trio closed up on him, he backed away frantically. His would-be escape was cut short by a thick tree, standing in his way. By the pale moonlight, Neville could see the young man's face, all pale with pain and terror. But his eyes burned with angry defiance. He looked, the thought passed in the back of his mind, even younger than they were.

     "Filthy ministry dogs!" the young man spat, and Sirius growled threateningly. Strangely enough, it was Harry who patted the black dog's head soothingly, before kneeling down beside the wounded young man. He still tried backing away, but when that didn't work, settled for a glare.

     "We can help you, if you just tell us who it was," Harry said soothingly. He had even put his wand away, Neville realized.

     "I don't know what you're talking about."

     "Come now, Nott. You know why you're here," provoked Neville. "Don't waste our time, because yours is running out a lot quicker."

     Harry shot him a look, but turned back to young Nott with a smooth face. "We'll set you free, if you just give us the name. Just the name. I swear, on my honor."

     The young man spat on the ground between them. Neville stepped closer, wand out menacingly, and Harry waved him off. 'What was going on here?' he wondered. There were plenty of ways to make him talk, and the truth was only a dose of Veritaserum away.

     "Just the name," Harry repeated. Young Nott shook his head vehemently.

     "No. She'd kill me, if I told you lot. Like I'd tell you bloody murderers anyway. You bloody lot killed my father and my brother!"

     Suddenly, there was a bright flash of green light from the cover of the trees, and Neville dived for cover. Sirius gave an angry bark and dashed towards the source of the light, but Neville could see a black figure bursting through the treetops on a broom. There were startled shouts from the aurors in the air as the figure streaked up and away, fading into a dot before disappearing.

     Sirius gave a last angry bark, at the figure or the aurors Neville couldn't tell, and padded back. It was then that he noticed Harry hadn't moved at all.

     "Harry?!" He hurried over to his friend, who was still kneeling on the ground. He gave his friend a quick look over, and saw with relief that he wasn't hurt. Harry was staring at young Nott, and he followed his friend's eyes.

     "Bloody hell," he whispered.

     Blood was gushing out of a gaping hole in Avery Nott Junior's forehead.

     "We almost had them!" exclaimed Sirius, smacking his fist down on his palm.

     "Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time," remarked Neville, settling down next to Sirius. There was a bustle of activity around the cottage, as the aurors moved about, taking evidence. The air patrols were still searching the skies, but the murderess was long gone on her broom. Probably they feared Sirius and the captain's - "Bloody idiots, the whole blasted bunch of hogs!" - wrath. Speaking of which....

     "So our perpetrator is a she," he said.

     Sirius nodded in disgust. "Which only brings the search down to one half of humanity. Thank you very much."

     "Not one half of humanity - one half of our suspects. Less than that, actually. And there is only one female suspect on our list."

     "Hmmm...."

     Reminded, Neville looked over at Harry, who was talking to the two widow Notts, elder and younger. The old lady held herself up proudly, though she had gone deathly pale at the news. He had been her last surviving son. The younger one, no more than a slip of a girl, had broken down into tears, though she vainly tried to hold them back.

    Then he saw Harry say something to the guard, who apparently said something back. Harry made a slashing motion of his hand, and to Neville's astonishment, took the handcuffs off the two women.

     "Wait a moment there!" he called out, jumping to his feet. He ran over to Harry, who waved the guard away and came to meet him halfway.

     "Wait for what?" Harry asked grimly.

     "What the bloody hell are you doing? They're suspects for this case!"

     "Suspects? An old woman and a pregnant teenage girl? They can't possibly know anything. Get real!"

     "Get real?! One was married to Avery Nott, who was a Death Eater, and the other to the younger Nott, WHO KILLED FOURTEEN PEOPLE LAST MONTH!"

     To his astonishment, Harry quickly glanced behind to see if the widows had heard, and hissed back. "Quiet, you fool! They might hear!"

     "Hear what?! It's going to be all over the Daily Prophet tomorrow! Avery Nott Junior, Goes His Father's Way!"

     "Shut up, Neville! We went to school with his brother! They don't need to hear it from us. We've hounded them bloody enough."

     "Enough?! In case you've forgotten, bloody Theodore Nott was a Slytherin, and a Death Eater to boot! He shed innocent blood, just like his father! And now his bloody brother, too!"

     "We're no better than them now!" Harry exclaimed. "We hound them and hound them. We kill their fathers. We kill their brothers. We take away their money, their homes, we take everything! Then we deny them the chance to start over. Society turns a blind eye, because they're afraid of being seen as sympathizers. Of course they're going to turn to crime! Why not, when we've basically driven them to it!"

     Neville was furious, a bubbling flow of anger that had been nestling inside his heart surging up his belly and throat. In the back of his mind, he knew that the frustrations they were taking out on each other was more than about just the widows. It was about Narcissa and Cho and the unavenged deaths and helplessness they felt on this case, all boiling to a bursting point. But all that was covered in the red fog of anger.

    "What I think is," he practically shouted at his friend. "Is that being involved with a Death Eater has made your brains go soft! Or has she bewitched you, man?!"

     Harry glared at him dangerously, and hissed. "Don't you dare speak about her that way."

     "I'll say what I like! Or have you bloody forgotten your parents, because I haven't forgotten mine!"

     Apparently that was enough, because he founded himself grabbed by his lapels and pulled closely into a pair of flashing dark green eyes and the sharp prodding of a wand beneath his chin.

     "Shut.The.Bloody.Fuck.Up."

     He was about to go for his own wand when a voice cracked whip-like behind them.

     "BACK OFF! Both of you!"

     The two men reluctantly backed off, and Sirius came up to them, furious.

     "I expect decent behavior from my men, and even better from my officers! If you lot act like the children you seem to be, then I will treat you as such! Is that clear, Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom?!"

     He nodded, abashed at the reprimand, and saw Harry do the same.

     "Then shake hands, and get lost, both of you! We're done for the night."

     Sirius whirled away, and they stared at each other for a moment. Then Harry offered his hand, held still in the space between them. He took the hand firmly for a moment, then let it go. They avoided each other's eyes.

     "I'm sorry. About all that about your parents," he said.

     "It's all right. How are they?"

     "They?" he asked.

     "Your parents," Harry clarified. "How are they?"

     "Oh, they're all right, I suppose. I drop by to see them every other week or so. Still don't recognize me, but at least they're alive."

     He saw Harry wince at that, and decided they were just going to be saying the wrong things to each other tonight.

     "Hey, look...."

     Harry stopped him with a raised hand. "Don't. Let's just call it a night, okay?"

     He smiled hesitantly, and Harry gave him a friendly pat on the shoulders as he walked away. He watched with sadness as the figure of his friend, wrapped in thought, apparate away.

    *     *    *

    Harry could almost taste the very air on the tip of his tongue, that cold/fresh/damp smell of the forest at winter. The feel of flying, free from the constraints of gravity, soaring like an eagle above its domain.

    He could see the figures rolling in the clearing, small but clear in his eyes, and tucked his head in and dived. The wind whistled in his ear, raking its cold fingers through his hair and clothes. He almost wanted to scream out loud at the feel of swooping down, preparing to sink his talons into his prey and feel the heavy crunch of breaking bones beneath his claws as he snatched life and body away from the earth. In the back of his mind he could sense the Voice, silent, rubbing its hands in appreciation of the coming kill.

    He pulled up on the ground and slipped off the broom, feet slightly shaky from the burst of adrenaline coursing through his veins like molten lava. He took a step forward, and his prey jerked his head around, face ghostly white with abject fear, and it slammed into him like a hammer-blow, that he drew in a sharp breath in shock.

    The face was familiar. Not the features they were foreign to him, but the look in the still young face. How the blood had drained away, leaving a pale mask, the eyes wide yet full of anger, mouth held together in a thin defiant line. Full of familiar fear and anger and defiance. So achingly familiar - why not, when it had been the staring back from the mirror, so many times?

    Then there was a red rose blossoming in the smooth young face, and the defiant eyes lost their focus and stared emptily into the sky. He stared at the blood trickling down from the gaping hole in his forehead, around the eyes, down the sharp nose and hollow cheeks, covering the face in a mask of blood.

    He jerked back in horror, and woke.

    A hand was laid on his forehead with startling coolness, and he almost slumped with relief, soaking the coolness into his burning brain. The hand traveled over his clammy forehead, to cup his cheek and stroke his neck.

    "You're feverish," she said. Her voice seemed to be always serene and calm, and almost always cold. But he felt no oddness there, reveling as her cool hands continued to stroke his forehead and neck, relief seeping into his body. She gently rolled him over to the other side of the bed, to where the sheets weren't damp and warm from his fever. He sank into their welcome coolness of the sheets and the pillow. She rose to leave, but he reached out and grabbed her hand.

    "I'm all right."

    She sat back down, beside him, and he pulled her into his arms. She stiffened at first, then eased into his embrace. She too gave a little sigh and shudder as their skin met, hot on cold.

    "You're always like this." she said, half question, half statement. She ran her hands along his chest, emaciated with the ribs clearly outlined against the flushed skin, and he nodded. She started to say something else, but his lips searched and found hers, cool and moist, and silenced her.

    *    *    *

    Neville leaned against the cool metal walls of the elevator. He was tired, that deep dead mental tiredness that overwhelming the mind. His head and shoulders ached, his back was stiff, and the remnants of his argument with Harry still echoed in his mind.

    'Have you bloody forgotten your parents, because I haven't forgotten mine!'

    But it had been him who had forgotten. He hadn't visited his parents for weeks. But they never recognized him, after all. Never, ever, and with every visit another piece of small paper was added to the box under his bed. And another bleeding wound in his heart to scab over.

    The door opened at his floor and he blinked in surprise. Cho was sitting on a chair in the landing, legs pulled up, resting her head on her knees. She looked at him with an unreadable sort of look on her face. For a moment he debated whether he should just let the door close and ride the elevator back down, and go out and get smashed and high, then pick up some floozy at a bar for another one night stand. His feet, on the other hand, seemed to have different ideas.

    She stood up as he approached her, and he could see dark circles under her eyes. They almost looked like bruises, though he thought they didn't mar her looks at all. She crossed her arms beneath her chest, and blocked his way.

    "We need to talk."

    "There's nothing to talk about."

    Suddenly there was a ringing in his head, and his cheek burned. Neville ran a tongue against the walls of his mouth, tasting blood. She had a strong arm, he conceded.

    "Well then, I'll do the talking, and you can just shut up and listen. I wake up in the morning, alone. So I think, oh, he must have been busy. But you return none of my letters, not even the howlers, and I can get neither sight nor sound of you, and I live next door! I'm beginning to think I've done something wrong, or there's something wrong with you. Any suggestions?"

    "Are you quite done?" he asked, when he got his breath back.

    She stared at him, then reached out with white hands to grab his lapels and pull his face down to hers. She smelled of roses, mingled with mint, and he wondered in the back of his mind why people seemed to find his lapels so handy tonight. But the thought was soon dashed out by her flashing blue eyes. He looked at her lips, full and sensuous, and remembered what they felt like against his own. Seeing something in his eyes, her hard look softened, and she relaxed her grip on him.

    "What's wrong, Neville? What's wrong? Is it me? Or is it you?"

    He turned his face away, but she didn't relax her grip on him, and he was forced to look back into her eyes. They bore into his own, as if to search out the hidden nook and cranny of his mind. He felt hollow inside, as if someone had taken a hook and scraped his body of all his organs, until the Neville Longbottom that remained was only bone and muscle and skin. Her words seemed to clang against his body like a bell, ringing from the top of his head to his very toes, vibrating through his bones. Certainly that must be why he gritted his teeth and had to blink away something in his eyes.

    "I don't know," he whispered. "Maybe its the world."

    She pulled him closer and gently pressed her lips to his. Her lips were soft, yet seeking. He could feel her hands slide upwards to gently hold his head. He held himself stiffly against her embrace, but he could feel something warm and wet dripping onto his cheeks to slide down to his chin. When was the last time anyone had wept for him? When was the last time he had wept for someone else? But he held still, fighting against it all, and she pulled back, a swirl of emotions in her damp blue eyes.

    "Then give me a chance, Neville." She raised a hand to his cheek, and he flinched, but she only pressed it gently against his face. "Give us a chance," she repeated, more gently this time. "I'm not going to disappear on you. Feel, just this once. It's all right."

    Something in her beseeching eyes made his heart ache, and like the point of a knife it pressed against him and parted him open. He draped arms slowly, tentatively around her shoulders. He still felt hollow inside, but now it seemed that she had somehow burrowed her way inside. He wanted to push her out, to clear his mind free and leave himself in peace, but he was so, so deathly tired, of everything, and didn't have the strength to push her away anymore.

    She wrapped her arms around him and gently eased him onto the chair. He sighed as he sank into the comfortable cushions, and she climbed on beside him, pressing her comforting weight against his own. He gently slid his arms around her narrow waist as she trailed kisses along his cheek. She made cooing sounds with her kisses, whispering against his skin. "It's all right, everything's going to be all right. Just let me in. Just trust me, okay? Let go."

    He realized that she was kissing away his tears, and he sank deeper, letting all the burdens fall from his shoulders, just this once, and let her kisses cleanse the loneliness from him. She was weeping as well, and he gently brushed them away with his fingers.

    She smiled at him, through her tears, then she moved onto his lips, hot and passionate, and he responded. He felt her hands beneath his shirt, leaving flaming trails along his torso. "Maybe we should go in," he gasped between kisses.

    "Go where?"

    Then he was too involved to be worried about such things.

    *    *    *

    Harry opened his bleary eyes to a thin stream of light seeping through the closed curtains. He had slept in late, something that rarely occurred to him when he was at her place. Then again, it was the other way around when they were at his flat. He quickly dressed in the spare set of clothes he always had here. By unspoken agreement, she had given over a drawer for his use, and he a part of his closet for hers.

    Like always, when he'd wake from her side or wake to find her gone already, he wondered where he was going with this. The days had passed, and then weeks, and they had continued to meet. Again, again, and then again, until they were with each other almost every night, some at her place, other nights at his. They always met at night, neither of them secure enough in their relationship or with the outside world, and their meetings were secret and furtive, hidden from the eyes of the world.

     They had always made love, in her great soft bed or his hard lumpy single, so much so that sometimes he wondered whether their relationship was just physical, set to evaporate with the dawn and the end of their fascination with each other. Did he truly love her, or just her cool, lithe body, as it sang beneath his own, and leeched away the fever and the hurt and the pain? The Voice wondered in his ear, when he was not lying next to her, if Lucius had ever wondered the same. But he banished the thought from his mind, because it made his heart burn with madness, to imagine other hands touching her pearly skin, or her arching into another's burning heat, her lips parted, her silver skin burnished with an inner pink glow. But their fascination, if that was all it was, never seemed to end, and their trysts had continued.

    Pushing the doubts to the back of his mind, to ponder another day, he opened the door and stepped out into the short hallway, as always relishing the feel of soft, thick sheepskin rug on the floor. He looked down the hallway at the various doors. They usually left each other at the crack of dawn, but not without saying their goodbyes. He hesitated, then opened the one that led to the kitchen.

    Narcissa was sitting at the table, dressed in that white silk gown he was so fond of. Breakfast laid in front of her, forgotten. She clutched the Daily Prophet tightly in her pale hands, knuckles shining white. Her face jerked up to his own as he entered, and he sighed at the pale look in them.

    "Young Avery Nott died last night." It was a statement. He nodded, knowing that it would be, as Neville had said last night, all over the papers.

    "Where are they?"

    "Who?"

    "Beatrice and Victoria."

    For a moment he wondered who they were, then realized that they must be the two widows Nott. He hadn't had a chance to catch their names, last night. He thought of the elderly lady, trying desperately to maintain her composure to what must have been the final blow. And the young weeping widow, early into her pregnancy, unable to cope with the shock of the news about her equally young husband. How sad, when pride and disbelief were all that was left them.

    "They've been released, though they'll probably be called back for questioning later on."

    "I have to go there."

    "That's not a good idea."

    She stared at him with a cool look in her face, and he winced inwardly, realizing that she too had lost a son before. But he still wanted to tell her that it wouldn't be a good idea. That it would only bring suspicion on her, because that's the way things worked, and how the powerless suffered. That was how wives paid for the crime of the husbands, how sons bore the sins of the fathers. But the words never left his mouth.

    "Then I'll take you there," he said instead. There was a brief flicker of surprise, then gratitude on her face, before it disappeared. She got up and came up to him, and gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

    "Thank you, Harry," she said simply. She spoke his name so rarely that it had become almost a treat, hearing her voice and seeing her lips name him, that it almost felt as if he was named anew, every time they parted. Then with a whisper of silk, she was gone, and he leaned against the table, sighing heavily.

    *    *    *

    "What in Hell's name is going on here?!" Sirius bellowed. Neville sank into his chair, while Harry sat up straighter. It said something about respective attitudes towards dealing with problems, Neville thought. "Do you know what I just heard from the surveillance team at the Nott house?!"

    Harry let out a small sigh, and Neville shot his friend a quick glance. Apparently Harry's little secret was out, and Sirius was not happy.

    "Harry, do you have some kind of an explanation?!"

    "No."

    "Then how do you explain the fact that you escorted, of all people, Narcissa Malfoy to the Notts, checked her through all the perimeter security, all the guards, threw out the examination and the interrogation teams, gave them an hour of free conversation, then brought her back out again?! What did you do that for?!"

    "She wanted to go, so I took her there."

    "She wanted to go?! She's a suspect for this damned case!"

    "She's not," broke Harry firmly, "a suspect."

    "What the hell were you doing with her in the first place?"

    "We're involved."

    Even Harry grimaced at the brutal honesty, and Sirius paled in his chair, the anger draining out of him, eyes wide and staring. Harry stared back defiantly, and Sirius sighed heavily.

    "I don't like the idea of you involving yourself with her," he said quietly. "Even if she's my cousin."

    Neville privately gave credit to Sirius. Call him what you may, he was nobody's fool. He'd probably figured it all out as soon as he'd heard the report. Harry's confirmation had only been the final nail in the coffin.

    "It's my private life."

    "And YOU, young man," Sirius emphasized, losing his calm and stabbing a finger at Harry, "are my godson!"

    Harry kept on staring at his godfather. Neville decided to slouch lower in his chair and stay out of this round. He badly needed a drink. Or maybe even a fix, though he'd sworn that off. He briefly wondered whether he'd have a chance to get either before hell froze over in this office. He wanted to go back to his warm bed, and equally warm bedmate.

    Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky, as somehow the line of fire shifted over to him.

    "And you," said Sirius, now pointing the finger at him, finding a fresh target. "You knew and didnt say anything?!"

    He sank even deeper into the chair, wondering why the floor wasn't opening up to swallow him. He could see Harry hide a cough behind a fist, shooting him an apologetic look. He sighed. "It was Harry's private affair. I didn't think I had any business interfering."

    "No business?! No business?!" Oh boy. The old man was really getting into this with both feet.

    "Sirius," Harry began, but he was cut off with a peremptory slash of the hand.

    "Be quiet! I'd forbid you from seeing her, but that would be just futile. Narcissa is to be put under a 24-hour surveillance from now on. Everywhere she goes, everything she does, everyone she meets."

    "No!" Harry shouted, surging to his feet.

    "SIT DOWN!" Sirius bellowed, and Harry glared at him for a moment, before backing down and reluctantly taking his seat again. Sirius took a deep breath, calming down. He'd had his ranting session, so Neville knew that he would explain the reasons behind his decisions. This was why Sirius, despite his stained past as a former fugitive, was the head of the aurors in these desperate times.

    "You are much too important to lose, Harry. You know that. And Narcissa IS still a suspect in this case, despite what you personally believe. Especially now that we believe the perpetrator to be female. Until we have concrete evidence to the contrary, she will remain under suspicion."

    "But around the clock! Grant her at least some privacy!" Harry protested.

    "I'm sure Neville will agree with me. Or did you want some kind of a plebiscite or general elections to decide?" he asked sarcastically.

    Harry shot him a look, but Neville shook his head. "Sorry mate, but I'm with Sirius on this one. There's too many things about her that give me the creeps."

    Harry pressed his lips together thinly, but acquiesced. "Fine. I accept. Under protest, but fine. Whatever. Do what you want."

    The taut tension in the room loosened a bit, and Neville took a good look at his friend. His own habits were bad - this was just plain stupidity. With Narcissa Malfoy, no less. The arguments against that particular person ran feet long. He felt a trace of unease. While he would readily agree that the widow Malfoy cut a stunning figure, there was little about Harry that could link him to the word 'impetuous.' If she was up to something....

    "Now," said Sirius, needlessly shuffling the reports on his desk. "The Nott funeral is in three days. The division will, of course, send a representative."

    Harry sighed and muttered something under his breath, but they all pretended not to have heard. No need to ask who that would be.

End Chapter 3