Something flickered in Lucius' face, at the back of his arctic eyes. 'Ronald Weasley is the same age as my own son,' he said coolly, looking straight at Lupin for the first time. 'And as you can see he has not been spared either. In war, there are no innocents.'
'Are we at war?' Lupin asked flatly. 'I hadn't noticed.'
'Indeed,' said Lucius. 'And by the time you do, you will already have lost.'
Harry, sitting crosslegged on a sofa in the middle of the Gryffindor Tower common room, looked at the fireplace with an expression of polite inquiry. 'What did you want to talk to me about, Sirius?'
Sirius smiled at his godson.
'Look, it's about Ron,' Sirius said. 'I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to worry you unduly, and also I know this isn't your favorite subject at the moment.'
'I-' Harry began, indignation and sheepishness chasing each other across his face.
'I know all about it,' Sirius said. 'Everyone knows all about it, Harry.
Which I wouldn't normally tell you but unfortunately it pertains to the discussion at the moment. Ron,' he said heavily, 'has not yet come home to the Burrow.'
Harry's green eyes opened wide behind his glasses. 'He hasn't?'
'No,' said Sirius. 'And it's been kept quite quiet. I know Arthur and Molly have not even told Ginny. This afternoon I went to the Ministry and spoke with Lucius — '
Harry's teeth set visibly. 'Lucius,' he said, and managed somehow to make the simple two-syllable name carry an unsettling freight of rage and hatred. 'Why him?'
'It was his Whirlwind Charm,' said Sirius. 'And he's quite high up in the Ministry of course, under the current regime. It is his considered opinion,' Sirius went on tensely, 'that Ron has simply run off. Legged it for France, or some such nonsense. He thinks Ron is ashamed to face you after what he did, and he also says…'
Sirius trailed off reluctantly, but Harry was more than happy to supply the rest of the sentence.
'He says Ron is afraid of me,' Harry added coldly. 'Because I'm Harry Potter and I'm dangerously unstable and all that.'
'Pretty much, yes,' Sirius agreed. 'Not that Lucius himself is going to make the cover of Sanity Fair any time soon, but this afternoon didn't seem to be the time to bring that up. Obviously, something's going on. If something's happened to Ron, are they covering it up? Do they want something from Ron? If they're trying to get at you — '
'Then why no blackmail messages?' Harry said, his eyes blank with tension. 'No requests for money, no severed toes arriving in the post?'
'Exactly,' Sirius said. 'Think, Harry. The last time you saw Ron…'
'Same as you,' Harry said. 'It was at the party.'
Sirius sighed. 'Bloody hell, maybe he did run off,' he said.
Harry's eyes flashed. 'He didn't,' he said. 'He wouldn't do that, and he's not afraid of me. At the party, when Draco called him over, he took everything Draco threw at him and just accepted it. He didn't fight back at all. He knows what he did wasn't right, he wants to make it up to me…he wouldn't just run away.'
Sirius narrowed his eyes at his godson; Harry returned the look, his eyes even more intently green with the blue shadows around them. 'You miss Ron?' Sirius asked.
'All the time,' Harry said. His tone was not welcoming of further questions about his feelings. Sirius did not pose any.
'And Lucius — Lucius didn't say anything to you about Ron?'
Harry shook his head. 'Not that I can recall. He whirlwhinded everyone away — after that, everything's a bit of a blur. Next thing I remember, really, we were up on the tower.'
Sirius blinked. He suddenly recollected Percy, leaning against the corridor wall, pointing down the hall at the door through which Lucius had disappeared: The Department for the Regulation of Memory Charms…
Sirius narrowed his eyes at Harry. 'So you don't remember anything from the casting of the Whirlwind Charm to the point where you were up on the tower?'
Harry shook his head. 'I hadn't thought about it, but no.'
Sirius expelled a breath. 'And Draco?'
'If anything important happened, he hasn't mentioned it to me.'
'Can you get him? I'd like to talk to him, too.'
Harry nodded somberly. 'Okay.'
For a moment Sirius waited for him to get up and fetch Draco, before he realized that of course Harry didn't have to do that. Instead he watched as his godson's eyes unfocused, as his hands uncurled and went loose in his lap. He could see the rapid pulse that beat at the base of Harry's throat, the tensile energy in the slender hands and set jaw. There was a strength in Harry that ran through and through him like coils of steel wire. Lately it had been more evident. Sirius was glad to see it; James, much like Harry though he had been, had had none of that strength. He had been able to be brave when needed, of course, but he not had any capacity for ruthlessness of purpose or action. Sirius wondered now if Harry did. If he could be cruel if he had to be.
Harry's eyes came back into focus, dark lashes sweeping down to cover the expression in them. 'He's coming.'
'That's good.' Sirius paused a moment and then plunged ahead with a question he was fairly sure would not be well received. 'How does he seem? His spirits, I mean, not his health. Madam Pomfrey keeps me updated on that.'
A spark of green fire between lowered lashes; Harry spoke evenly. 'Well, I think he's sick of being stuck in the infirmary. And I'm sure he wishes Snape would hurry up with the antidote. But he's fine.'
'He's fine?'
'He's fine.' Harry's voice was still even. 'I think he's tired of stupid questions about how he's feeling, but he's fine.'
Before Sirius could reply to this, the portrait door opened and the subject of their discussion came in. Sirius wasn't sure what he had expected, but Draco looked much as he always had — perhaps a little thinner, more tired looking. He wore a red sweater that hung slightly loose and his eyes were dark smoky gold in the firelight. He nodded at Sirius and came to sit next to Harry, who moved slightly aside to make a place for him without having to look to see where he was. Sirius found himself clearing his throat. He wasn't exactly sure why but the pair of them made him nervous suddenly, two sets of eyes — green and gray — fixed on his with polite inquiry.
'Harry already explained to me what you were talking about,' Draco said helpfully. 'And now, I don't remember being taken upstairs either. I had thought it was just me, but apparently not.'
'And you didn't talk about it?' Sirius asked. 'You and Harry?'
'Kind of hard to bring up something you don't remember,' Draco pointed out kindly.
'Well, what do you think happened?'
Draco crossed his legs and settled his elbows on his knees. 'I think my father used a Memory Charm on us,' he said calmly. 'I think something happened that he doesn't want us to remember. He's always been a devoted practitioner of memory alteration spells and he can create charms that are impossible to detect or remove. I suspect we might never know, but…'
'Do you think whatever it was had to do with Ron?' Harry interrupted.
'I…' Draco hesitated. 'I think it might very well have. I mean, since that was the last time anyone ever saw him…'
Tensing all over, Harry wrapped his arms around his knees. 'I hate your father,' he muttered, staring down at his shoes. 'I hate your fucking bastard father.'
Draco flinched and glanced sideways at Harry. For a moment his expression was laid open, so intent in its flawless uncluttered devotion that Sirius felt the press of old memories against the backs of his eyes.
Then Harry turned to look back at Draco, and the concealing barriers went up again, Draco's face now
