A/N: Please enjoy and REVIEW! Revised and edited as of 1/31/17.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Chapter 4: Of Hellebore, Fire Crabs, and Chocolate

The next morning, Rowan avoided Remus and her godbrother like a plague – she came to breakfast early and made friendly conversation with Lily Evans, who was always an early-riser, and made up an excuse of writing a letter to her parents so that she wouldn't have to walk with the Marauders to their first class. Rowan knew she could play off her strange behavior as nothing and Remus would accept her excuses, but she felt especially uncomfortable that morning knowing that her secret was out, even if only one other person knew.

And of all the people who could've found out, it was of course James Potter who had caught onto her silly infatuation! She groaned mentally and wanted to smash her face into a wall every time she thought about it. She knew she could trust him above anyone else to keep her secrets safe, but knowing that anyone held such delicate information over her was nerve-rattling to say the least, and so she was resolved to keep to herself for the day. She felt guilty knowing that she wouldn't talk to Remus before he left for his transformation, but she convinced herself that by the time he returned, he would've forgotten the embarrassing spectacle she'd made of herself the night before in the Common Room.

Luckily, they had assigned partners during their Herbology lesson, and Rowan was miraculously paired with Mina Surrey. Neither of them had a real passion for the subject, but they were both competitive students – Mina in particular, who had a desire to go into auror training after Hogwarts – and thus, their partnership was one that the rest of the diligent students eyed cautiously.

This day was a slow one. The greenhouse was full of easy chatter between partners, though Rowan and Mina remained quiet. They were crushing black hellebore blossoms for potion-making, creating a goopy dark purple paste, and Rowan was reciting in her head silently all the potions that included it.

Draught of Happiness, Calming Draught, Pick-Me-Up, Blues-Be-Gone Brew… Rowan listed mentally, a meditative calm settling over her.

"Rowan…"

Rowan kept mashing the blossoms into her mortar, still lost in her thoughts, now listing the properties for white hellebore.

German sneezing powder, Alexander's Downfall, constipation cure…

"Rowan!"

She looked up to see Mina staring at her. "What?" she asked shakily.

"You're overdoing it," she replied, staring pointedly down at the now browning paste in her mortar.

Rowan groaned, "Sorry, Surrey. I guess my mind isn't in the right place today." She smiled apologetically at her. Mina nodded.

"Still feeling unwell?" she asked. Rowan's heart stopped for a moment.

"What?" she asked a bit too quickly.

"Potter and Lupin told me last night you weren't feeling well, so you couldn't help them with the Potions assignment," said Mina casually. Rowan could see the other girl noticed Rowan's skittishness.

"Oh, yes, of course," she said, kicking herself for the millionth time that day for her suddenness - seriously, Delacoix? Get a fucking grip. "No, I'm okay now. I'm just thinking about the Potions assignment due next week."

This time Mina groaned. "Seriously? You're already going to get top marks on it. Why would you be thinking about it now?" she asked incredulously, but affectionately.

Rowan laughed, "Can't help it. I just love potions!" She stopped and grinned sheepishly, "I sound like a right nutter saying that, don't I?"

Mina laughed and shook her head, returning back to her mortar and pestle. They shared a comfortable silence for a few moments before Mina started again.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" she asked Rowan quietly.

"Yeah, shoot," Rowan responded.

"Why is someone like you friends with Black?" she asked slowly.

Rowan looked at her, confused. "What do you mean, 'someone like me'?"

Mina seemed to be searching for the right words. "I mean, I can understand that you have mutual friends and are both troublemakers," she stopped for a moment and Rowan grinned at her. Mina couldn't help but grin back for a moment, but then continued, "But you're very… Well, you're kind. I know you like to cause havoc every now and then, but when it comes down to it, I also know you're the kind of person who... I don't know... You have your shit together, and you're, well, just a nice person. Black, on the other hand..."

"He's kind of a prick," Rowan said helpfully.

Mina scowled. "That's putting it lightly," she said darkly. Rowan smiled thinly. Mina smiled back with contrition. "Sorry, it's just that I can't understand why someone like you would befriend someone so bent on bullying everyone in this school," she explained.

Mina looked over at Rowan, who was visibly thinking. She'd heard Remus tease Rowan about her "Grinding Gears Expression" and she had to bite down a chuckle when she saw it on her face. It was as if she could visibly see the thoughts trickling down from her head to her mouth. Finally, Rowan spoke.

"I can imagine how it looks, and I can't blame you for disliking Sirius," she started slowly. Mina snorted in derision, and Rowan gave her a rueful smile. "Honestly, I didn't like him much at first either – if James and I hadn't been mates, I probably wouldn't have given Sirius a chance at all. He's definitely not easy to get to know, and getting him to open up is like prying a fire crab from its shell." Her face scrunched up as if remembering a particularly frustrating memory, "But once you do, he'll be your friend for life. He's certainly saved my hide more than once."

"Can you give me an example?"

"Umm…" she thought carefully. "Oh, okay. Well, the summer before our Third Year, I acquired a taste for chocolate." She thought back on why she became so obsessed – a certain Remus Lupin had brought her back a bar of rare Swiss chocolate with essence of asphodel from his family's vacation to the Swiss Alps, and she quickly began to crave anything of the sort.

Mina raised an eyebrow at her. "Yes, yes, I know how daft it sounds, but it was different! I developed a very discernable palate for only the finest of chocolate! A connoisseur, if you will!" Rowan said dramatically. Mina's skeptical expression remained. Rowan sighed, "By the end of the summer, I was bored and hungry, and I stupidly stole one from a shop at Diagon Alley because my parents stopped giving me any allowance. It sounds silly, but it really happened."

This grabbed Mina's attention – she knew Rowan had a streak of troublemaking in her, but stealing?

"I know. It's not something I'm proud of, but it was more about the thrill of it rather than the actual chocolate, and it was also a bit of rebellion against my parents," she explained. She scowled slightly at the memory of her lapse in discipline but continued. "Anyway, eventually a shopkeeper caught me stealing some really pricey artisan chocolate from his shop. He threatened to call a Ministry officer on me, but Sirius stepped in and took the blame for it, saying that he bullied me into it."

Rowan was looking down at her mortar and pestle, now still in her hands. She frowned. "Of course, I didn't let him take the fall for me. The shopkeeper took pity and only called our parents, but Sirius definitely got it worse than I did." Her brow furrowed again, and she looked up to stare at Mina as if trying to determine if she should continue. "His parents are really awful. I don't like speaking ill of my friends' families but... Well, they're terrible people. They really are."

Mina nodded slowly. She was a Muggle-born, but she'd heard enough about the Black family in her five years at Hogwarts to know their dark reputation. Rowan continued, "I tried to convince them that it was my fault, but just the fact that he was associating with me, the daughter of blood traitors... It was enough for them to be angry. I didn't see him again until the beginning of the school year. He still won't really talk about what happened."

The two girls stood together silently at their bench for a few minutes, both considering Rowan's story. Finally, Rowan spoke again, "I don't know if that helps you get a better understanding of Sirius, but he really is a good guy. There are some fucked up reasons for why he is the way that he is, but I think it speaks a lot to his character that he turned out so well considering all the things that are working against him with his upbringing and family. I can understand why you dislike him still, but maybe you can also understand why I value him so much."

Mina held Rowan's gaze and nodded slowly, mulling over her words, and then she smiled hesitantly. "Well, I guess if someone like you can vouch for his character, he can't be completely terrible," she joked.

Rowan smiled back, "Yeah… He is still kind of a prat though." The two grinned at each other and returned to their work. The bell indicating the end of class soon rang, and as they packed up their bags, Mina looked over at Sirius from the corner of her eye. She saw him mussing up Peter Pettigrew's hair, and on his face was a gentler expression of affection than she'd ever noticed before. She decided, then, that perhaps Rowan was right - maybe he wasn't all that bad.