It's the beginning! And it's a first draft, so...

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Returning to the station after the summer was nerve-racking for Amelia. She was anxious, hormones in a frenzy. It irritated her, that someone, one person, could have such an effect on her.

She entered onto Platform 9 3/4 with this attitude, and resolutely determined to ignore said person until such time she had decided that he had made up for this summer. She was determined that this would be with a great many apologies, and begging. There would be lots of begging, if she had her way.

Amelia pushed her cart towards the train, waving goodbye to her parents, ready to go. Her stuff was not on the train yet, but that was easily fixed, and her parents wanted to return home, both for fear of what could happen, and also because her father was close to inventing a new broomstick. It heartened her to think that her father's zeal for inventing was the stronger part of this need.

Amelia had turned to wave to her parents as they passed through the barrier, and in doing so, had exposed her peripherals to a person she had not been hoping to see for some time. At least until she had thought of the proper way to make him sorry for the summer.

Sirius spotted Amelia in the haze of the station and felt a strange contraction in his chest. He lifted his hand for a wave, but when he saw her turn away, he was disheartened. Perhaps she had never gotten his letters, his explanations. Stuck in his house the entire summer, he had thought that the one bright spot of this day, other than being allowed out and going back to what he thought of as home, would be Amelia. If she had gotten his letters, she should've understood. He hoped she understood.

Amelia was distracted, seemingly, by the dilemma of moving her trunk up into the train.

"Bangcroft!" she heard a voice behind her. Turning, she found Frank Longbottom behind her, grinning like a fool. "Bloody hell, what are you doing? Where are your parents?"

"Dad had to get back to the office. Got a new broom on the boards," she said with a smile, aware of Sirius staring at her from afar.

"Yeah? You gonna give me first pick?"

"Always, Longbottom," she said with a laugh. "But you've got to do something for me first."

"What is it?"

"Give me a hand?" she said, gesturing towards the pile of trunk, carrier for cat, and other accoutrement of a student at Hogwarts.

"Only if you help with mine," he laughed.

"Fair's fair."

He laughed, and nodded his assent. With his help, Amelia lifted the trunk into the car, then returned the favor.

"How was your summer, Longbottom?" she said as they climbed into the car together, depositing steamer trunks to be moved into the checked area, and grabbing their bags for the ride and carriers.

"Ah, you know. Same as always."

"Frank!" Alice's voice carried through the car, and Amelia couldn't help but laugh as Alice launched herself into Frank's arms quite violently. It was a very good thing that Frank was sturdily built, as he probably wouldn't have been able to withstand the onslaught otherwise.

"Alice! Can't be without Frank for more than a week, I'd guess?" Amelia teased.

"Not even that! Barely the weekend since we last saw each other," Frank retorted, keeping his arms around his girlfriend from childhood.

"Well, Frank, you're an addiction. I'm just sorry I never got a taste of the drug that has our Alice going crazy!" Amelia giggled, slapping Frank on the back. "I'll see you later!" she said, hoisting her bags onto her shoulder and heading off through the car.

"See you, Amelia!" he called back. Alice added her own goodbye to the mix as well. Amelia waved over her shoulder, and proceeded down the narrow hall between carriages.

She was moving at an easy pace, and eventually came to the last of the cars and the last of the carriages. It was completely empty, no one she knew, no luggage, no food wrappers. She slid the door open and entered almost silently.

It didn't take Amelia long to get settled. Her feet tucked up onto the cushions, her cat and bag safe on the other seat. She had ensured herself some alone time, at least until someone she could tolerate showed up desperately in need of a seat. She felt simultaneously that feeling in her stomach of leaving home, and that feeling in her heart of returning home. Anticipation and loss. It was a heady combination that she sought to drown out with some music and a little reading.

Sirius approached Amelia's carriage with a certain amount of well-deserved trepidation. He knew her reputation, and had even experienced a small amount of her wrath himself. He didn't know exactly why Amelia was mad at him, but was not naive enough to think that she was wrong in her anger. He at least knew testing her was definitely not a good idea. She was sitting next to the window with a book in her hands, headphones on her head. But he was struck with the silhouette she cast into the dying light of the day.

Her hair glowed orange at the edges, full and lush. Her profile, the sharp lines of her nose, and the full ones of her lips, were outlined in blood-red. The darkness of her hair, almost black in normal light, highlighted by warm brown, and the dark-tan of her summer skin, stood out against the brightness of her eyes. The whites, and the piercing green, were under dark eyebrows and darker lashes. She cast an imposing figure.

He knocked on the door carefully, but she didn't hear him. He slid the door open even more carefully, and when she still didn't budge, he moved as silently as he could into the carriage. He shifted her bag and sat down slowly, took a deep breath, then began.

"Amelia," he said. She did not look at him, but simply held a finger up, indicating he should wait. Carefully, she turned at page, slid a bookmark into place, closed the book, and removed her headphones.

"Sirius," she said curtly. He gulped at the set of her mouth and the scrutiny in her eyes.

"Er—How was your summer?" he said awkwardly, not used to operating under a glare from a girl not his family. Most girls he met with were enamored by his cool, mysterious exterior, one that he was interested in maintaining. But Amelia was unlike other girls when it came to this, and he could not think of a time wherein his charms had worked on her without her consent. In fact, most of the time he was with Amelia that he could think of, she was mad at him.

"My summer? It was…quiet," she said. "I was expecting more correspondence, but you know how it is. Everyone forgets about everyone through the exciting vacation."

"So…I take it you never got any of my letters?"

"Oh? You sent letters?" she said, feigning surprise that she actually felt.

"I guess…you wouldn't believe me if you never got them," he said sheepishly.

"No. I guess I wouldn't," Amelia said.

He sighed. "Amelia…" he was running his hands through his hair, something he did not do unless he was genuinely agitated. "What can I do to make you believe me?"

Amelia sighed as well. "There is nothing you can do, Sirius, short of abject apologies and begging. And it will take a lot of that." She was up now, at the door of the carriage. Despite all her callous appearance, Amelia was incredibly hurt by Sirius' lack of contact over the summer. She had thought, all her cynicism aside, that Sirius and she had had a real shot. But all of that had been shot to hell over the summer, and despite what she said, and the attitude she projected, she did not think that anything Sirius did would change that.

Disappointed in his silence, she slid the door open and slid out of the compartment. She was ashamed of the way tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she gritted her hands and balled her fists against it.

"It's a shame my cousin is an idiot," came a voice from the end of the hallway. Amelia immediately recognized it as Bellatrix's, and disappointment in Sirius was soon replaced by anger and annoyance.

"A whole summer," she continued, sauntering out from behind a corner. "A whole summer, and he never once figured out that I was stealing his mail." The curly-haired girl held up a pack of tied letters, a sizable one for the short three months of summer. "And, no, he couldn't have picked up a phone, either. I convinced my parents and my darling aunt and uncle that we need some quality family bonding time." She smiled cruelly. "Quality time in the family castle. Unfortunately, not wired for phones."

Amelia nearly choked on the feelings of anger and hate welling up in her throat. "Why?"

Bellatrix snorted, casting a disapproving eye over Amelia.

"Because," Bellatrix said, very deliberately. "You are not one of us. You are unsuitable for Sirius. For any Black, for that matter."

"And you have a say in who he dates?" Amelia retorted.

Bellatrix chuckled, then turned serious. "Stay away from the Blacks, Bangcroft. We don't want you."

"I don't really think that's your decision, Bellatrix," Amelia said, growing angrier.

"It's not," Sirius' voice came from behind her. His arm wrapped around her shoulder. "Bellatrix," he said, holding out his hand, "my mail."

Bellatrix scowled, fingering the package. "Here," she said scornfully, throwing the pack at his feet. "Your dog can fetch it for you."

As Bellatrix walked away, Sirius bent down and picked up the pack of string-tied letters. He considered it a moment, then held it out for Amelia to take. She silently took it, and looked at Sirius. His eyes burned. She slid out from under his arm, and opened the door to her compartment. Keeping her eyes on Sirius the entire time, she shut the door slowly and locked it. She moved back to her seat, knowing that he was watching her, picked up a letter opener from her bag, and slit open the string and the first of the letters. She cast a glance at Sirius through the window, then unfolded the letter and began to read.

The carriages that drew students up to the castle still unnerved Amelia, even after all this time. She had been here for four years, but the seemingly self-drawn carriages were never a good point for her. She always thought she could hear things that her friends continually denied, always thought she could feel the breath of something when she stood in front of the carriage, always saw actual hoof-prints as they rode the carriages up to the castle. Because of this, she had almost always started out her welcoming dinner on an uneasy note.

It did not help that although Hogwarts was one of her homes, Amelia felt significantly separate from her Housemates. She and most of her House were not of the same cloth, she liked to think. Bellatrix, Lucius Malfoy, and Regulus Black were in control of the majority of Slytherin, either by coercion or by choice, it did not matter to Amelia. The few leftover students were on the fence or not interested in the politics of the real world. She envied their ignorance.

Walking into the Great Hall, Amelia immediately went to the Gryffindor table, giving a cheery wave to Frank and Alice, as well as Trudie and Xeno at the Ravenclaw table, but beelining to the one girl she had sorely missed all summer.

"Lily!" Amelia called.

The curly redhead turned around, searching for the person who had called her name. When she spotted Amelia working her way towards her, she extracted herself from the group she had been greeting, and moved towards the other girl quickly.

"'Lia!" she exclaimed as they hugged. "How was your summer? Did you and Sirius…?" She looked at Amelia expectantly.

"Not talk at all this summer and start off this year with a rocky start? Yes." Together, they cast glances at Black, sitting and goofing off with his friends, all of which Amelia blamed equally for her isolation over the summer, perhaps unfairly. Feeling the eyes on him, Sirius turned around and caught Amelia and Lily's gazes. Lily immediately turned away, blushing furiously, but Amelia kept her eyes on him. Despite what she had read, the evidence did not make her any more inclined to forgive Sirius anytime soon. She still wanted to hate him, if just for a little longer. His eyes kept hers across the distance, and he mouthed "I'm sorry" at her across the hall. She inhaled deeply and slowly, and nodded once, before returning her attention to Lily.

"How was your summer, Lils?"

"Oh, good. Very good. Although…"

"Petunia again?"

Lily looked very pained. "She's always just…I don't know. When we were in Kent, I asked if we could visit the site of Hengist of Woodcraft's last battle, you know? For the historical significance—it's important to non-wizards, too, and she just…"

"Was Petunia," Amelia finished with a certain amount of chagrin. She wrapped her arm around Lily comfortingly, and led her back to the group from which Lily had emerged. "Feel lucky that you even have a sister; there's at least one person in the entire world that will have to love you, not that you have any problems with that." She opened her palm to the group of people waiting, as if it was a demonstration.

"You know, you don't have any problems with that, either," Lily said, watching Amelia's face carefully. She registered the flash of shock that crossed the sharp, hard lines of her friends face before they were settled beneath the poker face mask she knew Amelia used when she was particularly not interested in letting anyone see her insecurities.

"Despite the fact that your House does not appreciate you," Lily continued quietly. "There are plenty of people here who do." Her open palm towards the knot of friends sitting in front of them mimicked Amelia's from only moments before.

Amelia was not happy about being put on the spot, so to say, by Lily. She was just about to point out that this was not about her, but about Lily, when Dumbledore stood up and began making his way to the podium. Amelia was grateful for the excuse to slip away, and hurried over to the end of the Slytherin table, sliding into a seat at the end the row, far as possible, given the crowded quarters, from Bellatrix and her cronies.

"Four years have passed," Dumbledore began, as the hall fell into a hush, "since the start of the war. There are many sides," he said, scratchy voice traveling through the now silent hall. "And many victims. But here," he held his hands open, "here we are united. Family. We must keep that in mind in the days, and years, to come.

"But, let us not forget, the new additions to our family! Welcome young students!" Amelia craned her neck to see the young first-years, eyes wide with wonder and fear, file in. She frowned at the small numbers they made, but quickly turned her minds to other things as Dumbledore brought the Sorting Hat out and began the ceremony. She clapped and smiled along with the other students as new additions were added to each house, but a small corner of her mind dwelled on what Dumbledore had said; the ominous undertones were hard to ignore.

Here, at Hogwarts, it was almost easy to forget there was a war on, almost easy to not think about what the papers were saying, and not saying, and easy to not hear the whispers that rumbled under the surface. But she found as each year passed, it was harder and harder for her to forget, to brush off, the words she heard so clearly when she left the hallowed halls of the school she loved. It made her shift in her seat and move her hands with nervous flutters, a state she was unused to, and not willing to let in easily. But it was a state she was slowly growing accustomed to, and she felt it would only grow more familiar in the years to come.

A/N: SO, this is the first chapter (may or may not be unfinished...I haven't decided) of the next part of the Bangcroft & Black series of stories (which are actually parts of one story, that's how its organized). The structure is up on my profile page, for those who want to know what to expect.

I suggest you read "Moments" if you want to know what's going on, though.

This story is unfinished, and this is a first draft. I'm thinking about getting a Beta reader to help with flow and organization, so if you're interested...

As always, read and review, and have a wonderful...however long it takes me to cook this up!