Draco Sinister

Chapter Three - Darkness Visible

"Padfoot," said Remus Lupin softly, staring into the embers of the fire dying in his office grate. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"

He was sitting at his desk, in the dark, an empty wineglass in his hand. He hadn't been drinking - he didn't drink much, and rarely alone - but he liked the feel of the glass in his hand, liked watching the moonlight from the window run around its rim like a darting point of fire. He put it down, stretched, and picked up a paperweight off his desk. Sirius had given it to him the year before.

It was a clear glass snow globe in which reclined the figure of a tiny, pretty, red-haired nymph, resting on a miniature rock, playing the oboe. (Because it was a magic globe, the snow fell all the time, without needing to be shaken.) Lupin had always thought she looked a bit like Lily, although he never would have said so to Sirius.

The nymph put her oboe down and looked at him. "Go to sleep, Remus," she said. "It's late."

"I'm waiting for Padfoot," he said, softly. "We were supposed to talk." He put the globe down, got up from the desk, and walked over to the dying fire. He sat down and leaned his back against the brick of the fireplace, shutting his eyes. "Sirius Black," he whispered.

"Where have you got to now?"

"I'm here," said a voice at his elbow.

Lupin opened his eyes and glanced down, saw Sirius' head and shoulders in the fire, and grinned.

"Sorry," said Sirius. "It took me a while to find a proper wizarding house with a fireplace. Not many fireplaces in this part of Greece.

Too hot."

"Greece looks like it agrees with you," said Lupin. This was the truth; Sirius looked healthy and tanned and smiling, and the deadened, haunted look of Azkaban was nearly gone from his eyes. Nearly gone - Lupin doubted that it would ever leave Sirius entirely.

"It does," said Sirius. He tilted his black eyes up to Lupin. "You said you wanted to talk to me about Harry," he said. "Is he all right?"

"Harry's all right," said Lupin. "Well, as all right as expected. He's sixteen; he's got a load of new powers dumped on him and no way to deal with them. He's separated from his friends, and of course, every year of his life since he was eleven someone's tried to kill him.

I think he's feeling a little weary and resentful."

"He's not separated from his friends," said Sirius. "He's got Draco."

"The Malfoy boy?" said Lupin, in surprise. "It was my impression they hated each other. Just this afternoon I had to pull Harry off him, he nearly beat him to a pulp in the hallway. Very unlike Harry.

The Malfoy boy shrugged it off, said Harry was upset over breaking up with his girlfriend."

"What, with Hermione?"
"Oh, so you knew about that?" Lupin said with interest.

"Harry never told me," replied Sirius with a grin. "It's my impression he'd rather suffer the Cruciatus Curse than tell me about his love life. But -" Sirius' shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I guessed."

"How?"

"Canine intuition," said Sirius. "And the fact that whenever he saw Hermione, he looked like someone had hit him with a Bludger.

James used to look at Lily that way. It's an unmistakable sign."

Lupin was grinning again. "I remember when you were sixteen and you-"

"Oh no," interrupted Sirius firmly. "We're not talking about me. We are talking about HARRY."

"Actually it was the Malfoy boy I wanted to talk to you about," said Lupin. "Draco. Terrible name, by the way. Poor kid."