She was having a panic attack. How could this happen? How could he have escaped? No one had ever gotten past the dementors. It just didn't happen…But he did…he was 'at large' as the Daily Profit had put it. And while the whole wizarding world was up in arms and deathly frightened by the prospect of Sirius Black on the loose, one thirteen-year-old girl was quite intrigued by the matter.

Neva Lyte Black was the daughter of Sirius and Rose Black and when she was a just a wee babe her mother had been killed one infamous Halloween night. Rose Black had died at the side of her dearest and best friend, Lily Evans Potter. They had died trying to protect their children, whom they knew, would one day set the world free of this terrible tyranny. Yes, Neva Black too had a scar that one only gets when one is touched by powerful dark magic, but precious few knew of her scar. Not even the Boy-Who-Lived knew that one of his best friends shared his magical anomaly.

Neva glanced worriedly out of the window. The full moon shone ominously back at her. She knew that a few doors down a wolf with a snout any expert would say was a bit shorter than usual was curled up waiting for the moon to wane. After her mother had been murdered and her father sent to Azkaban for his crimes, she had been sent to stay with the only person that would take her in, Remus J. Lupin.

Remus had always been the best father to her that he could be. Teaching what he could of the wicked ways of the wizarding world and treating the subject of her parents carefully. Telling her stories from his school years and the great battles fought against Death Eaters. He always talked of Sirius as if he was already dead. She had wondered for many years why he did this; he knew that she knew this wasn't the case. She would never forget realizing that the Sirius Black that Remus had known was dead. Now there only remained the servant of The Dark Lord, and while, in her heart, she wanted to believe that he hadn't betrayed them all and that some mistake had been made and that he was really the fun loving and rash man that R.J. had always lovingly told her stories about, she always managed to brush off those feelings. Everything pointed to the terrible fact that this soulless man, whom she was doomed to call father, had used her mother and his best friend to spy for the enemy and then had sacrificed them all to his ill intentions. She must never let herself loose sight of this matter. She must never let him fool her the way that he had James and her mother.

Her stomach gave an involuntary leap…James…Harry…While she and Harry, Ron and Hermione had become quite good friends over the past two years at Hogwarts, she had never had the courage to tell them her surname, and with it the identity of her murderous father. While Harry, wouldn't have gotten the significance of the name Sirius Black, she was sure that it wouldn't be long before that name would be the epicenter for Harry's vendetta. What would happen when they found out that Neva Lupin was in fact Neva Black?

While she had always used Lupin's surname at school, she had constantly reminded herself that she was a Black, and she had promised herself to be the one to break the dark family legacy that the Blacks had always been so proud of. She felt her heart plummet and she promptly decided that this something that she just wasn't ready for. She shook her head. Straightened herself up and sternly told herself to simply deal with it, a singular simple step at a time.

"The first step is always the hardest right?.." she asked her pillow, "What is the first step?" But even as the words crossed her lips and dissolved into the darkness, she knew the answer. She had to tell Lupin.

After the full moon, she would always make a wonderful breakfast and wait excitedly until he finally emerged from his den and rejoined the two-legged world. He would smile at her and asked her in a worn out, monotonous way what he had missed and pick up the Daily prophet from the day before. When Neva was young she would always take pride in the fact that she could tell this older and wiser wizard the news of the time, but the next morning as she put the finishing touches on breakfast she gave considerable consideration to lying the Profit next to his breakfast and finding a nice corner to hide in.

She heard his door open and his steady footsteps stretch down the hallway. He walked into the kitchen. She burst into tears.

Lupin gave her a long wondering look. Not knowing what on earth could be wrong with the young witch. He sat down at his plate, picked up his fork.

"Have a good night?" He asked without the slightest trace of sarcasm in his voice. Neva looked up at him and gave him a glare that rivaled Professor McGonagall.

"It went almost as well as yours," She shot back as she steadily fought back her tears

He simply gave her a quizzical look, "Did you get attacked by vicious vampire or hellish harpies? Because if not, I think I may still have you beat." He winked at her.

"No," she started quietly, "..but…er…there was a break out…" Lupin raised an eyebrow at her and wondered how he had made it through these past 13 years of what seemed to be marked by utter confusion.

"A break out of what?…and from where while we are at it." He softly prodded her forward.

Neva took a deep breath, "Azkaban," She replied in a barely audible whisper. Lupin's mind shot directly to his old school mate that had been long locked up behind the bars of the famed wizard prison and he lunged for the day old Prophet.

"That can't be….I mean…How could…What about th-…This is unbelievable." He sputtered on a bit but Neva wasn't really paying absorbing any of his rambling. The initial look on his face had told her everything.

He was afraid.

So was she.

She was trying to find some way to verbalize the odd tightening occurring in her stomach when someone quite unexpectedly knocked on their front door. Neva and Lupin exchanged slightly frantic looks. He hadn't found them already had he? Was Sirius Black standing on their doorstep?

Lupin stood-up, "I think we are being a bit paranoid. I'll go see who's at the door." He put down the old Prophet and picked-up the new one as he strode towards the front door reading as he walked. She heard the door open, and before she heard Lupin's friendly greeting her imagination had unraveled many different bloody and disastrous ways that greeting could have gone.

"Dumbledore! I'm surprised to see you here…though I don't suppose I should be. Any idea how he did it?"

" To be honest with you, Remus I have not the slightest notion how he managed to escape, but don't let that get too far around, we wouldn't want to ruining my reputation, now would we?" Albus Dumbledore winked at Neva as she walked in. "And how are you taking this new development, Miss Black?" He asked in a tone identical to one asking some other one's opinion of the weather.

"It is a bit nerve racking, isn't it? He is a wicked, wicked man… and who knows what he could be capable of…why he wanted to get out…who he is going to go after…or even…And then what if they find out…I mean Harry won't be all lilies and roses when he finds out what my Fath- What Sirius Black did."

Dumbledore gave her a knowing smile, "I'm sure Mr. Potter, and your other friends will stand by you, even when they find our who your father is. Gryffindors aren't the type to turn their back on someone for their parentage, we usually leave that to the Slytherins." His blues eyes twinkled with mischievous truth. "Speaking of Hogwarts," his tone had changed into that of a Headmaster on school business, " I find that I am again in need of a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."