A/N: Yes. More stories. Good and bad news: I have a short break in courses. The bad news is, once they pick up again idk when I'll have time to update fan fiction, although I shall do my best. See below this story for special information on updates for this story!

This story is being started because it was burning in me. If you read Delicious Dark or Second Chances, you might enjoy this.

-C

Sirius Black groaned his thanks to his best friend's fiancée for healing his wounds the best she could. Her kind green eyes were looking down at him with concern.

"But Sirius, what if it starts bleeding again?" she asked anxiously.

"Lily, I know how to reseal a wound," he said, smiling. "Anyway, I'm supposed to stay here to report to Dumbledore, so if it happens within the next hour, I won't have much time to bleed out before he can fix me up fully. Go back to James. He'll be anxious, you know."

She hesitated, but she obviously knew that he was right about James, because she kissed his sweaty forehead and left him alone on the headquarters sofa.

Sirius leaned his head back against the arm of the sofa wishing Dorcas had thought to put throw pillows on the sofa when she furnished the place. He contemplated transfiguring something, but he was just too tired. So maybe it had been stupid to throw himself in front of that curse when he didn't know what it was, but he didn't have time to think about it. He'd needed to protect Lily. James would never forgive Sirius if he allowed Lily to die before they could finally marry.

He closed his eyes, breathing steadily, pointedly through his nose, hoping that Dumbledore would be so anxious for the report that he would show up early.

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Albus Dumbledore frowned at the body lying unconscious in Hagrid's hut, on the newly cleared-off table. The young woman was perhaps sixteen years old, but she was not one of his students. She had features that reminded him of someone, but he could not place her.

Dark brown hair the shade of the table beneath her was matted and messy, but bore evidence of being otherwise healthy and luxurious if it were properly groomed. Her skin was pale, without a single visible freckle, although some dirt was caked on her skin where she appeared to have fallen face first in mud from exhaustion. There was some bruising around her wrists, but she was so pale that Albus wondered if she had ever seen the sunlight before.

Her features were delicate, aristocratic, even, with high cheekbones and a thin, well-sculpted nose. Her chin was strong, just the right length, and although her lips were pale from cold, they were well-formed and just the right balance between strong and delicate. Thick black lashes fringed her closed eyelids, and full, strong eyebrows framed the brow bone. Albus could not say why, but he was sure that if she opened her eyes, they would be gray.

Her body was not as tall as he thought it ought to be, perhaps four inches shorter than he seemed to expect, and not exactly as lithe and thin as it should be. There was something off, wrong, about her, but he still could not place her, and so he did not know what it was.

"Tell me again, Hagrid," he said softly, "where you found her."

Hagrid proceeded to tell him about finding the girl, unconscious, on the outskirts of the forest when he went to feed the thestrals. He hadn't recognized her as a student, and when he tried to rouse her, she woke barely for a second and said something about needing to find her bed.

"The village?" Albus asked. "I do not know of anyone her age living in Hogsmeade."

"I can' think of anyone, Professor," Hagrid said earnestly.

Albus nodded. An unconscious girl presumably left on their doorstep. Who knew how long she had been there? And if she was not a student, but she was not a Muggle….

"No wand?"

"No, sir."

But she had seen Hogwarts, Hagrid had told him how she had muttered something about the castle as he had brought her back to his hut. She had seen Hogwarts, so she had to have magic. She must have been taught from home, then.

"I will take her to headquarters, Hagrid. You have done well."

Hagrid helped Albus to get her upright, and Albus carefully wrapped his arm around her waist before creating an illegal portkey to the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix.

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Sirius woke to the sound of Dumbledore muttering something, and he opened his eyes to see that Dumbledore was lowering what appeared to be a body to the floor. Sirius tried to sit up and see, but he groaned as his shoulder began to bleed again, just as Lily worried it would.

"I see not all went to plan," Dumbledore said his eyes twinkling with amusement as he touched his wand to Sirius's shoulder and sealed the wound up properly before checking Sirius for other injuries and healing them. "There, you should be well enough now to help me with this young woman."

Sirius stood, looking down at the body of what appeared to be a dead girl, but Sirius transfigured a pillow from a nearby magazine and Dumbledore levitated her to the sofa Sirius had previously been napping on.

"Who is she?" Sirius asked.

"Well, that is the question, Sirius. Hagrid found her in the woods. She is not a student, has no wand, but she certainly is not a Muggle."

Sirius couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something about this girl, something so familiar. The shade of her dirty hair, the slope of her nose, even the fact that he was almost certain from looking at her that she would have gray eyes if they were open. Her clothes were simple but well-made, and there was something chillingly familiar about the bruises on her wrists.

"What are we going to do with her?"

"We are going to help her, Sirius. Stay here, see what you can do about cleaning her while I see what we have left in our potions cupboard."

Sirius pulled out a handkerchief and wet it down with a wave of his wand. He could have probably cleaned her skin directly with his wand, but it seemed like a good way to wake and startle her.

Judging from the layers of mud he gently wiped away from her skin, he would guess that she had been in the forest for at least a few days. Her skin was still pale, flawless under the mud, apart from the bruised wrists. He'd cleaned her face and neck, and was just about to start on her arms when Dumbledore came back with several vials and a small bottle that Sirius didn't recognize. Sirius stood back from her as Dumbledore opened her mouth and carefully tipped in the potions in a very particular order.

Her breathing, which had been so light that Sirius still hadn't been certain she was alive, became more normal, so that Sirius could see her chest rising and falling. A bit of color returned to her lips, although her skin was otherwise still unnaturally pale. He could see her eyes moving rapidly beneath her closed lids, but she did not open her eyes.

"What do we do now?" he asked as Albus carefully healed the bruising on her wrists with a spell and some paste.

"Now we wait," Albus said firmly. "Come. Let's have a cup of tea while you tell me about your own injuries."

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She opened her eyes slowly to find that she was not, where she expected to be, in a yellow room. She was instead in a room with pale cream walls, on an overstuffed plum sofa. She sat up and groaned with the stiffness of her body, and before she could become accustomed to this strange feeling, two men hurried into the room, one very old with kind blue eyes and an exceptionally long beard and hair, the other not much older than her with gray eyes like a storm and black hair that fell effortlessly about his aristocratic features. This man, he felt familiar, safe, but she didn't know why. She didn't know anything.

She began to feel a sharp sense of panic and her breathing became difficult, but the elderly man crossed to her and took her hand.

"Breathe deeply, my dear," he said gently, and she tried to do as he asked. "What is your name?"

"Catherine."

She did not know how it came to her so easily, but it did, rolling right off her tongue as though it had been there all her life. It must have been her name, then. He gave her an encouraging smile.

"Catherine what?"

"I…I don't know," she said as her vision blurred. She frantically searched for a name, any surname, that felt like it might be hers, but there was none. Breathing became labored again, and the younger man hurried across with a cup of tea, pressing it into her trembling hands. She drank it, and she knew almost instantly that they put something in it to calm her.

Breathing was easy again, but her vision was still blurred with tears.

"Where are you from?"

"I don't know," she said, gripping the cup more tightly.

"Your parents?"

"I…I don't remember."

Catherine, as she was beginning to think of herself, could feel a slight anxiety under the potion she had been given.

"Do you know how you got to be in the forest?"

Catherine didn't even recall that she had been in a forest. She tried to remember anything, any small thing, but she shook her head, touching her temple when she felt a slight ache.

"I…I was in a room, in a bed," she said softly. "My bedroom? I don't…. The walls were yellow, and there was a…a window beside me. I…. A lamp?" She frowned, rubbing her forehead. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."

"That's quite alright, my dear," the elderly man said. "Now, Sirius, why don't you make some lunch for our guest, and we will think about where to put her."

"Put me?" she asked, sitting up more, nearly forgetting the tea in her hands, holding it more steady as the tea sloshed a bit at the sides of the cup. "I…"

And then it hit her. She didn't know who she was, or where she was from, or how she got to where she was. She couldn't just walk out into the night and go back to whatever her life was before she came here, not until she started remembering a few things.

"I see," she said, rubbing at her arms absently. They were a bit dirty, and she frowned at the bit of dirt that flaked off.

The kindly man said, "After you've had a bite, my dear, you will have an opportunity to clean up. I will have to speak to Miss Evans about getting you something fresh to wear. But there's a bedroom here; it's not regularly used. We are going to put you up there until we find out a bit more about you, if that is quite alright."

"It's no trouble?" she asked, nervous. "I mean, I don't want to put anybody out."

"It is nothing, my dear," he said, his blue eyes twinkling behind half-moon spectacles. "Sirius, how is food coming?"

"She can come in any time," the young man called. "Sandwiches are nearly ready."

The kindly man helped her onto shaky legs and walked her into a kitchen with blue wallpaper and a bit of light blue tiling on the floor. Sirius, the younger man, was placing a plate of sandwiches on the table before sitting across from her. Catherine noticed he was watching her with curiosity, and she felt a bit self-conscious. She must look a state, although she hadn't had a proper look at herself, and here was this incredibly handsome man watching her.

"Tuck in," he said, smiling.

Her heart did funny things, seeing him smile like that, but she gave him a weak smile back and submitted to her hunger. While she ate, she learned that the kindly older man was named Albus Dumbledore – and he insisted that she call him Albus – and that the younger man was named Sirius Black. The house she was in was the headquarters for something, but they didn't talk about whatever it was. Catherine got the sense that whatever it was, it wasn't very pleasant based on the way Albus's eyes grew sad when conversation got too close to it.

"I'll call Lily while she's cleaning up," Sirius said when Catherine was on the last of the sandwiches. "She'll be able to bring over some clothes, maybe some more food, a newspaper. Maybe that'll spark something in her memory."

"That would be ideal," Albus said. "I need to be getting back to the school. Sirius will stay with you, Catherine."

"How long?" Catherine asked.

She wondered if she sounded as anxious and small as she felt. Surely Sirius had somewhere else to be, other things to do, but she didn't want to be alone, not in this strange place where strangers came and went, not without knowing anything but her name and what color her bedroom was.

"I'll stay the night, anyway," Sirius said, smiling at her. "I haven't got anywhere I need to be, and if someone drops in, I don't want you to be the only person here to greet them. Last thing you need right now."

Catherine nodded, and Sirius saw Albus out, leaving her to finish her last sandwich in quiet. The room really was remarkably quiet, still, with just the smallest sound of a bird outside. She thought she might be somewhere in the countryside, with that much quiet.

Sirius came back into the kitchen as she was standing to find the bathroom, and he was looking at her quizzically.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, feeling almost exposed under his gaze.

"No," he said, giving her a smile. "No, it's just…. This may sound strange, but before you woke up, I was sure your eyes would be gray, but…but they're brown." He laughed at himself and Catherine was startled by it. There was a barking quality to his laugh, like she was suddenly in the presence of a large and boisterous hound. But when the laugh was over, she realized it was only the sound of Sirius laughing, and she knew there was something funny in his laugh sounding like a bark, but she couldn't think of what it was, just like she wasn't really sure why it was funny that her eyes were brown.

"Bath's at the end of the hall," he said, gesturing to a corridor she had passed from the front room to the kitchen. "I know there's soap in there, but I can't vouch for anything else, or even if it smells decent. If you need shampoo or something, I can have Lily bring some over."

"N-no, I'll be fine," she said, thinking that if she just managed to rinse all of the mud out of her hair, she would take care of shampooing once she remembered where home was, so she could go back.

Catherine went into the bathroom, turning on the light and starting the bath, startled by how hot it felt to her cold hands. She rubbed them together and tried testing the temperature again, finding it still a little bit too hot.

As the bath was filling she looked in the mirror, frowning at her streaked skin, the dark circles forming beneath her soft brown eyes, the way her dark brown hair matted and caked around her face. A forest. She had been found in a forest, she reminded herself. Why couldn't she remember being in a forest?

Perhaps there was a forest where she lived, she thought, peeling off the dress she had been wearing, carefully pulling off her underwear.

It was a nightgown, she realized, looking at the dress more closely. And she wasn't wearing shoes. How had she not noticed that her feet were bare?

A shiver ran down Catherine's spine, but she told herself it was only the cold, stepping into the bath, letting her body sink into the warm water, ignoring the burning sensation as her icy skin touched the warm water. It would be pink at the waterline, she knew, but she'd be pink from scrubbing, anyway, when she got all of this mud off.

Sirius's recollection was good. There was soap, and it smelled normal enough. She saw a little bottle of shampoo. There wasn't much left and it smelled oddly of lemongrass and what she thought might be mushrooms, but she decided to use it and face the wrath of whoever it belonged to later. She didn't think they would mind if they could see the state of her hair.

There was a knock on the door as she began to scrub her mud-caked feet and she turned, feeling small again, like she'd done something wrong, although she couldn't think what.

"Catherine, Lily's getting some things together and she and James will be over. Take your time. When you're done, there will be clothes laid outside the door for you. Okay?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, relaxing at the sound of Sirius's voice. "And Sirius, thank you for the sandwiches. They were delicious."

He laughed again, another bark.

"They were sandwiches," he said through the door, and she could almost hear his beautiful smile. "But you're very welcome. I expect Lily will bring you something proper for dinner and you'll taste what exquisite cooking is."

"Lily cooks?"

"No, James's mother cooks. That's where they are now. Anyway, enjoy your bath, and try to relax. They're friends, I promise."

She thanked him again, waiting until she could no longer hear the sound of him walking away up the hall before letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, turning her attention back to her feet.

A/N: So that's the beginning! This is going to be AU, but as in-character as humanly possible. Not everyone who died will die. Not everyone who lived will live.

Today is Saturday, and I am posting. Here's the deal: Every week, if a week passes with 10 reviews, I will post on Saturday. IF I get 10 in that week, I post early! Want an early post? Review! Every 10 after the first ten (within the span of that week) gets an extra post that week! Want three posts in a week? Give me 30 reviews! I've already written out all 34 chapters of Part 1, so if you want to know how things work out, you can drive the pace of updates!

Review Prompt: If you could pick one death from the first war (apart from Lily and James) to change, who would it be?

I think I would change Caradoc. Disappearing seems so much more terrifying than all of the other stories. Really opens it up.

-C