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They both avoided all mention of Narcissa and Remus.

Draco had plenty to say on other topics, though. More than once, he went on about how the mirror would be of no use to him, since he certainly didn't love anybody who had died. Not anybody, he stressed. Harry thought his brother was a bit defensive on that point. He wasn't quite sure what was going on. Was Draco worried that he still did love Pansy deep down? Or worse, was he afraid that he might see Lucius in the mirror?

Draco had loved his birth father once, after all. Maybe he still did, a little, even after everything that had happened. Maybe Draco loved and hated him both.

Harry didn't ask. He decided he didn't really want to know.

But of course, if they could get the mirror to work, he might end up finding out.

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Getting the mirror to work, as it happened, was anything but assured. It only took Harry about three days to conclude that much. Draco wasn't very hopeful either, though he did keep plugging away on the problem. Quidditch lost all appeal, and they stopped wandering the castle except to go back to the mirror and examine it minutely, looking for other inscriptions or clues they might have missed. Then they wanted to try some diagnostic spells they'd found. Snape went with them for that, and watched tight-lipped as each boy tried casting them.

But the mirror remained absolutely unresponsive.

Several days after that, Harry slammed a book closed as he sat in the dining alcove. It was useless, wasn't it? He knew by then that brighter minds than his had tried to wake the mirror up, way back in the twenties and thirties, when it had first gone dormant. And they'd all failed, so what had made him think that he stood any sort of real chance? He wasn't brilliant like Hermione.

Good thinking . . . when she came out to Devon to visit, he'd definitely see if she had any ideas.

"Problem?" asked Snape mildly, his footsteps approaching from behind. One hand settled briefly onto Harry's shoulder.

"Yeah." Twisting his neck, Harry glanced up at his father. "I don't think the mirror's going to start working, after all. Which is sort of . . . well, it's kind of rough, that's all. Believing that I might finally get to talk to my parents, and then to have the chance taken away, again?"

Snape sat down in the chair next to him, and nodded as though he understood. Maybe he did. Harry actually wasn't sure. He still hadn't heard much about Snape's own mum and dad. But at least now, he knew better than to ask.

"Well, it could be worse," he said, trying to cheer himself. "I might have got my hopes up about seeing Sirius again, too."

An odd sort of silence seemed to surround him, then. A conspicuous lack of reply, either from Snape right beside him, or Draco who was reading on the couch. He seemed a little too focussed on his book. No banter, not now. It took Harry a moment to sort it all out. "Wait. You think I could see Sirius if we could get the mirror working?"

Snape's hand covered his own and squeezed. "I'm certain you hold him in your heart. Aren't you?"

The question could have been sarcastic, but it wasn't. More . .. rhetorical, Harry guessed. He looked up into his father's face. "Well, sure. I just thought ... you know, the Veil? I figured Sirius wasn't in the usual . . . er, realm, or wherever the mirror connects to."

"That's possible."

Snape sounded like he doubted Harry's analysis, though. Harry's mind went into a whirl. Sirius . . .

What if he could talk to Sirius? What if he got a chance, finally, to tell him he was so, so sorry for rushing out to the Ministry like that? Tell him he'd never have done it if he'd known what it would lead to?

Harry's heart leapt into his throat. Talking to his parents . . . that was like a fantasy, in a way. He couldn't even really imagine it, since he'd never done it before. But Sirius was someone he knew. Someone who knew him.

Oh, God. Sirius was also someone who knew Snape.

Suddenly, everything seemed a lot more complicated. When Sirius found out that Severus Snape was Harry's new parent, he'd have something to say about it. Something bad, that was for sure. Probably, something unbelievably awful.

But Sirius wasn't going to say anything, not about any of it, was he? Because the bloody mirror was never going to start working. Harry sighed, unsure whether to be relieved or depressed. There was only one thing he was sure of, really.

"It was good of you to help me look for a solution," he told his father, moving his fingers so he could sort of squeeze Snape's for a second. "Even more so, if you were thinking all along that it might show me Sirius."

Snape shrugged. "Why wouldn't I help you? Black can do nothing to me."

"Yeah, because he's . . . dead." Stupid thing to say, Harry knew. But some part of him felt like he was only just then finally, really accepting it. He'd known before that Sirius was gone forever, but deep inside, he'd always sort of thought that the Veil was different, somehow. Sirius couldn't be dead, not the way other people were. He was just . . . missing, and couldn't get back.

But if the mirror could contact Sirius just as readily as anyone else who'd died, then there was no more denying it.

"He's dead," Harry repeated, whispering. He wished he didn't sound so shocked. So . . . mental.

"Yes," said Snape softly, grasping Harry's hand a little more firmly. Only then did Harry realise he'd been shaking, just a little. He blinked, trying to get away from the awful choking feeling in his throat. "But what I meant was that he can do nothing to us."

"Oh." Harry swallowed a couple of times. He knew there wasn't any point in being unhappy. He ought to think about what he had, not what he'd lost. And he had a lot. What Snape had just said was proof of it. "That's true too, yeah."

Sirius could jump up and down with outrage, or even tell Harry that James would be disgusted, and it wouldn't change how Harry felt about Snape or the adoption. Though it would hurt. A lot, probably.

"Maybe it's just as well that he won't even get a chance to object to all this." Frustrated, Harry snatched his hand back and waved it randomly to indicate where he was living. "Why does the headmaster even keep that stupid mirror around?"

Snape's dark eyes glimmered with sympathy as he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together atop the table. "I didn't wish to mention this earlier, as it would only have discouraged you. And it was good to see you and Draco working on this project together."

Draco glanced up from his reading. "But?"

"Albus acquired the mirror years ago, hoping to awaken it."

"Oh, great." Harry felt like just banging his head on the table. "If the greatest wizard of the age failed, there's not much hope for me, is there?"

"Thought you were going to be the greatest wizard of the age," said Draco as he set his book aside. "Or so implies a certain prophecy. Giving up so easily, are you?"

"No . . . yes . . . I don't know!"

"Perhaps a break from the problem is what you most need," said Snape. "You can resume your research later during the summer, if you wish. In any case, I hadn't thought to stay in the castle much longer. A holiday in Devon will do us all some good."

"Remus is more important than any holiday." Harry stood up and faced his father. "Shouldn't you and Lucinda keep working on the Wolfsbane?"

"We've done as much as we can for the time being. Several new formulations will be tested over the course of the next few fulls, and Lucinda will be collecting data to help us refine the potion further before we dare risk introducing any changes to Lupin's own dose."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Harry really did appreciate all the work his father had put into the Wolfsbane project. Even if Snape was doing it mainly for the Order and not so much for Remus, he still appreciated it. He tried his best to smile.