Sirius was stunned when the beautiful girl asked him for his name, so he quickly blurted out "Si-Sarah, Sarah Black-wood", catching himself just in time, angry that he had been so careless. At this rate, he should be more afraid of being carted off by evil muggles than getting spanked by his mother. The girl, whom he now knew was Jasline, brought him into her fairly large house and stood uncertainly at the door to her room. "What would you like to play?" Taking a peek inside, Sirius was surprised by the volumes of books that the girl owned. What was she, a bookworm? Wondering if he had made the wrong choice of making friends with her, he asked to read together, consoling himself that at least Jasline hadn't asked him to play with dolls or do some other girly activity. So they spent the first day reading many storybooks, and Sirius found that he quite enjoyed himself reading "fairy tales" and some other amazing mystery novels. It was a welcome change from all the boring history books of his ancestry or mind boggling spell books that lay at home. He sensed that Jasline had the wrong impression that he was from a poor family (must be the skirt, he was slightly annoyed that Jasline would look down at his sewing skills) and thus hadn't gone to school, but he was happy not to correct that misconception. After all, he would then have the ready excuse to run off, saying that he needed to help his mother back home. He quickly declined Jasline's offer to walk him home, feigning embarrassment and saying his house was very small, so he didn't want Jasline to see it yet. (Actually, his house was probably twice her house's size, but she wouldn't be able to see it anyway, since it was hidden by the barrier)

One year had passed peacefully by, but Regulus was turning five and starting to sleep less. Sometimes Sirius would arrive just in time, climbing the tree to get through his bedroom window, before his mother hollered at him to start his lessons. He would most certainly be caught if he continued his routine. He and Jasline had become good friends, sometimes inevitably playing with stuffed animals, but most of the time thankfully either reading books or listening to Jasline as she taught him stuff that she learnt in muggle school. Mathematics, Science, the languages, she was so much more interesting than his mother. The latter would just dump all the grammar, verbs, spells and etiquette books at him and expect him to learn everything by the end of the day, giving him a test that he would fail most of the time the next day, getting a spanking in return. The caning was so frequent that his mother became too tired to spank him by the time he turned five, just repeatedly expressing her disappointment at his "lack of effort" or "ability to understand" or something else. It was hurtful that his mother kept saying such things, to the point that Sirius accepted that he was perhaps a little stupid after all. But Jasline never said such horrible things, in fact, she was always encouraging and complimented Sirius whenever he got a Maths question right. It cheered Sirius that at least there was someone who did not criticize him all the time, and he cherished Jasline even more.

He did not know how he could meet Jasline now, with his afternoon play time getting shorter and shorter, that even Jasline began to notice. Perhaps he could somehow meet her at night; no one could possibly catch him then. His father worked late nights and never bothered to check up on him, while his mother would turn in early every night. Regulus would fall asleep listening to Sirius retell one of the stories he had read in the afternoon, so that was no problem either. With that in mind, he set out a plan to see Jasline at night, hoping fervently that she would agree with the plan.

Jasline noticed that her friend always grew quite restless after 1 hour of play time, and would often give excuses about rushing home to help her mother prepare things to sell at a market far away. She supposed Sarah would be given more responsibilities as the days passed, and volunteered to help, but she was always vehemently rejected by Sarah. Up till now, Sarah had never once invited her over to her house. Sarah must have had her reasons, so Jasline didn't pry further, although she always wondered how Sarah could have walked to her house every day if she didn't live nearby. By now, Jasline already knew all the neighbours along the street, and not one of them could tell her where Sarah lived. Maybe one day her impoverished friend might trust her enough to confide in her, but for now, she would just enjoy the short time she had with her enigmatic friend.

Then one day, Sarah popped by with a grand plan. She explained to Jasline that her mother was becoming stricter and needed her to work during the day time, so she could only come out and play at night. Jasline's role was simply to unlock the gate for her at around 10pm every night so that she could come and play. Jasline's mother, Gladys, was already used to Sarah, so she didn't object to the arrangement, and it wasn't hard convincing Jasline's father as well. After all they were all too aware that Sarah was the key to breaking their daughter's reticence, her very first friend since moving here. No one could have anticipated the horrible events that would soon follow.