Disclaimer: I never said I owned Harry Potter.

A/N: Go check out WeasleyBlack's story Who is Charlotte Black? It's my favorite HP fanfic on this site right now.

No one got any sleep that night, waiting for the results of the Professors' search of the castle. I rested my head on Ron's shoulder, both of us too tired and petrified to care. McGonagall came back at sunrise to let us know that Black had escaped once more.

During the day, it was clear that security efforts had doubled. There was a giant picture of Sirius at the front doors, actually being the first time I'd seen the maniac. The years in Azkaban had not been kind to him, looking a bit older than a thirty something should. His eyes sunken and grey. Hair wilder than Harry's and to top it off, he looked vengeful, which scared me more than anything.

I had even seen Filch sealing the tiniest of cracks in the brick walls. My favorite part of the changes had been that Sir Cadogan was fired. The Fat Lady returned, but in her natural diva fashion, she wanted security. Those being trolls.

Could they club Black to death? With ease. Would Black be able to outsmart them before they got the chance? Absolutely, and that put a crack in my faith in the Headmaster. At this point, we needed something a bit more foolproof than that.

"D'you reckon we should tell someone?" Harry asked as we passed the unguarded statue of the one-eyed witch which was the secret passageway to Honeydukes. "We know he's not coming in through Honeydukes." dismissed Ron. "We'd've heard if the shop had been broken into." I nodded at his reasoning and grateful that we didn't have to tell anyone about it or else Harry would never be able to go to Hogsmeade ever again.


Because he was nearly a victim, Ron had become an overnight celebrity and was enjoying every second of it. I believe he had told the story twelve times already and I was getting tired of it. "…I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know? But then there was this draft… I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down… I rolled over… and I saw him standing over me… like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair… holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches… and he looked at me, and I looked at him and then I yelled, and he scampered. Why though?" He asked to Harry and I as the crowd of second year girls left.

"Why did he run?" I shrugged before teasing him. "I haven't the slightest clue. Skeleton or not, he could've definitely taken you." Ron gaped at my cruel sense of humor, but as usual, Harry intervened.

"He must've known he'd have a job getting back out of the castle once you'd yelled and woken people up. He'd've had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole… then he would've met the teachers…" Harry stopped as Neville sat down.

We were all disappointed in him, but no where near as much as McGonagall. She banned him from Hogsmeade for the rest of the year, given him a detention and worst of all, he couldn't know the password to the tower. That meant every time he wanted to get in, he had to wait for someone to come out and he'd be sitting there all alone with the scary trolls. I found I had a soft spot for the underdog and I'd frequently check the portrait entrance to see if he was miserably waiting outside.

Another negative change in his life were the howlers. He had gotten one earlier in the week and it seems he had one again today. "Run for it, Neville." The bucktoothed boy nodded at Ron's advice and ran out of the hall, holding the envelope by the corner. The entire Slytherin table erupting in laughter as the howler went off, echoing his grandmother's yelling voice.

After stopping at the teacher's table to ask McGonagall when my detention was (What? I wanted to serve it as soon as possible), I strutted into the common room where there was a crowd of students by the bulletin board, no doubt reading about the next Hogsmeade trip. "I'll tell Professor McGonagall about that map!"

I walked by the couches to see Hermione at a book-towered table not too far back, whispering to Harry with Ron by his side. "Can you hear someone talking, Harry?" faked Ron who happened to be just as horrible as an actor as Hermione. "Ron, how can you let him go with you? After what Sirius Black nearly did to you! I mean it, I'll tell-" I decided now was the time to make myself known.

"Hermione, I know how you feel, but you needn't take it out on Harry." I knew she's been feeling left out lately, but I didn't exactly want to say that in front of the boys. I was the only one in our close group to talk to her anymore. "So now you're trying to get Harry expelled!" Always jumping to conclusions, that Ron Weasley. "Haven't you done enough damage this year?" And with that, she had taken off with Crookshanks, leaving all her open books on the table.

I glared at Ron, but he looked like he could care less, so I followed Hermione up to the girl's dormitories in haste. I found her on her bed, curtains closed shut, but I could hear hushed whimpering. "Hermione…" I said with gentle respect before slowly pulling the curtains back. There she sat, knees together, head down, shoulders shaking, hands covering her face and Crookshanks by her side.

I sat down on the edge and she looked up with red, puffy eyes, still sniffling. "Don't listen to him… anyone who takes a redhead seriously is a fool." Her shoulders shook again and I racked my brain for something else to cheer her up, that is until I noticed she was laughing.

"How Percy gets anything done as Head Boy is beyond me." It was my turn to laugh at her joke. I never got to see her like this and I must say, I liked this side of Hermione. "Harry's going to go to Hogsmeade, isn't he?" Our laughter had fizzled out and the dynamic had definitely changed by her question.

"Unfortunately, yes… Harry's daftly confident like that. Are you going?" she finished wiping her tears before answering. "Yes, I want to stock up on supplies at Scrivenshaft's. Aren't you going?" I shook my head and laughed. "No, McGonagall rescheduled my detention to tomorrow afternoon with Snape." She winced at that and began rubbing the affectionate Crookshanks. "Have fun with that." And I had every intention to.


"Ms. Elliot, your punishment for your foul innuendo last week is not only to never be able to artificially project your voice on Hogwarts grounds as long as you live, but to also serve detention with me this perfect Hogsmeade afternoon." I raised an eyebrow at his patronizing tone at the end.

"Your duty will be to organize my ingredient cabinet in alphabetical order, then size, then by alphabetical order of the animal or plant they come from and what part of the living being they were taken from. Do you understand?" I nodded, and took out my wand, trying to remember everything he said. "Without magic." I was annoyed, but I did as he said and put my wand away.

He led me to the cabinet and I was intimidated by its vast amount of scattered contents. He walked back to his desk and I looked down at the disgusting dungeon floor only to sigh before kneeling on it in front of the cupboard. I took them all out before putting them in by the order he instructed.

The only sounds being made were clinking of vials and Snape's quill violently scraping across parchment. "99 bottles of… stuff on the wall. 99 bottles of stuff! Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of stuff on the wall-" "No singing in detention, Ms. Elliot." I immediately shut my mouth, not wanting another detention. With my luck, it'd probably be on another Hogsmeade trip and I wouldn't be there to stop Harry from doing something stupid.

"Professor! Professor!" I got whiplash from rotating my head quickly, turning to the doorway.

I could barely recognize the brat as he zoomed in. Malfoy's hair was covered in mud and his face was lightly splattered as well. "I was just at Hogsmeade and I saw Potter's head!" I buried my face in the back of the cabinet to hide my silent laughter. Never before had he looked or sounded this unkempt.

"Mr. Malfoy, sit." Snape demanded and the bully started up again. "Crabbe, Goyle and I were at the Shrieking Shack and Weasel was there and all of a sudden, mud and sticks were being thrown at us and then out of nowhere, Potter's head was out there floating!"

I could hear him nearly panting as he waited for Snape to say something. "Thank you Mr. Malfoy. Go back to the common room and I will handle this. Ms. Elliot, one can only hope you can continue your task on your own without my supervision." I nodded to him as Draco left and he walked up to me, hand out, as if he were reading my mind.

"Wand." I pulled out the very slender piece of wood from my hoodie's pocket and placed it in his large pale hand.

When the door shut, I sighed and stared at the hundreds of vials in front of me wishing that they would just arrange themselves.

I stood up wanting to snoop around his office a bit before he came back. I wiped the dust from my knees and jumped at the sound of glass thumping on wood.

I squatted and peered into the cupboard and more vials were in there than I remembered. I scratched my head, but gasped upon seeing the vials float into their proper spots, one by one.

I closed my eyes and was met with the second thumping of glass upon wood. I was doing wandless magic!

My celebration was short lived by Snape bursting in the room with Harry in tow. Noticing my dilemma, I flew my hands into the cabinet without looking and knocked over my whole herb section.

"Careful Ms. Elliot. If you destroy those, it will be you spending your summer in the Gobi desert replacing them." I gulped at that and went back to my punishment, noticeably eavesdropping.

"Sit." instructed Snape. I only heard one chair creak under the weight of a person.

"Mr. Malfoy has just been to see me with a strange story, Potter." Harry didn't utter a word. "He tells me that he was up by the Shrieking Shack when he ran into Weasley- apparently alone." Harry still didn't say anything. "Mr. Malfoy states that he was standing, talking to Weasley, when a large amount of mud hit him in the back of the head. How do you think that could have happened?" I snickered at a jar of deadly night shade. "I don't know, Professor." There was a long pause before Snape continued his inquisition.

"Mr. Malfoy then saw an extraordinary apparition. Can you imagine what it might have been, Potter?" "No?" Why did all my friends happen to be horrible liars?

"It was your head, Potter. Floating in midair." The invisibility cloak. "Maybe he'd better go to Madam Pomfrey. If he's seeing things like-" "What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade." "I know that." Snape sounded far too sure to be questioning him. "It sounds like Malfoy's having hallucin-" "Malfoy is not having hallucinations." His voice lowered and his tone turned grim.

"If your head was in Hogsmeade, so was the rest of you." "I've been up to the Gryffindor tower. Like you told-" "Can anyone confirm that?" Harry failed to say anything and I could hear the smile in Snape's voice.

"So, everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to with no thought for the consequences." I was mentally encouraging Harry to set Snape straight before he went too far, but he didn't.

"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter." Where the bloody hell did that come from? "He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers… The resemblance between you is uncanny." "My dad didn't strut." defended Harry, finally. "And neither do I." I smiled, nearly finished with my tedious work.

"Your father didn't set much store by the rules either." I peeked over my shoulder to see Snape nearing Harry's face with his own. "Rules were for lesser morals, not Quidditch Cup- winners. His head was so swollen-" "SHUT UP!" I stopped to completely gawk at my friend. Was there ever a thing about standing up for yourself too much?

"What did you say to me, Potter?" "I told you to shut up about my dad!" He shouted once more. "I know the truth, all right? He saved your life! Dumbledore told me! You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for my dad!" Well this was news to me.

"And did the headmaster tell you the circumstances in which your father saved my life?" He whispered. "Or did he consider the details too unpleasant for precious Potter's delicate ears?" Harry's posture changed and I knew he wouldn't take it any further, so I turned back to the cabinet, wanting to finish it soon and get the hell out of here so I could talk to Harry.

"I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter. Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you- your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn't got cold feet at the last moment. Black, however was ruthless, furious that I wasn't found without a pulse. There was nothing brave about what your father did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had their joke succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts." There seemed to be some truth in that.

"Turn out your pockets. Potter!" I jumped at the sudden change in volume. "Turn out your pockets, or we go straight to the headmaster! Pull them out, Potter!" I sighed and shook my head. Was that really necessary? Calling the most important man in school to get your dead enemy's child in trouble?

I could hear parchment against fabric, signaling that Harry had pulled out the map. "Ron gave them to me." He must've been talking about something from Hogsmeade. Zonko's no doubt. "He- brought them back from Hogsmeade last time-" Even Snape knew it was a load of bull.

"Indeed? And you've been carrying them around ever since? How very touching… and what is this?" He seemed to be just noticing the map. "Spare bit of parchment." said Harry aloofly. "Surely you don't need such a very old piece of parchment? Why don't I just- throw this away!" NO WAY! I haven't even gotten to use it yet!

"No!" Harry damn near begged. "So! Is this another treasured gift from Mr. Weasley? Or is it- something else? A letter, perhaps written in invisible ink? Or- instructions to get into Hogsmeade without passing the Dementors?" I had to admit, he was good.

"Let me see, let me see…" I could hear him smoothing it open on the desk. "Reveal your secret!" Moments passed and I was sure nothing had happened. "Show yourself!" He tapped the map with his wand again. "Professor Severus Snape, master of this school, commands you to yield the information you conceal!" The tapping had stopped and Snape began to read.

"Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business." I gasped at the map's audacity.

"Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that professor Snape is an ugly git." That was far too mean, but I couldn't help to smile at it.

"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor." Who were these guys?

"Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball."

As amusing as it was, the Marauders really weren't helping Harry out at all. "So… We'll see about this…" I turned to see exactly what he meant. I didn't know about him yet, but the cruelest professors at Beauxbatons would physically hit children even though it was against the rules.

I watched him throw a handful of silver powder from a jar, into the fireplace. Floo powder; my mum smelled of it all the time. It was how she traveled to and from work. "Lupin! I want a word!" Soon enough, the more pleasant looking professor came out brushing off his already dirty clothes.

"You called, Severus?" I just loved how he was ever calm. Nothing could shake the man. "I certainly did. I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this." As glad as I was that he didn't call the headmaster, I believed it was random to bring Lupin into it as well.

He stared as if the map was a rare artifact. "Well?" asked Snape and I had no idea, exactly what he was expecting. Lupin just continued to stare, shifting the weight on the balls of his feet. "Well?" He asked more sternly. "This parchment is full of dark magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?" He was our DADA professor, but this was far from dark magic. Silly at best.

Lupin glanced at Harry before repeating. "Full of Dark Magic? Do you really think so, Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who reads it. Childish, but surely not dangerous. I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop-" I could hear the insincerity in his voice.

"Indeed?" Snape questioned through clenched teeth. "You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?" Harry looked to me for the first time tonight and all I could do was shrug. I had no idea what Snape was talking about.

"You mean, by Mr. Wormtail or one of these people?" Lupin asked. "Harry, do you know any of these men?" "No." He answered quickly.

"You see, Severus? It looks like a Zonko product to me-" Footsteps filled the room which I was surprised to see belonged to Ron. He came bursting into the office, out of breath, clutching his chest as he spoke. "I- gave- Harry- that- stuff." He gasped. "Bought- it… in Zonko's… ages- ago…" Who told him that he was here?

"Well!" Lupin clapped his hands together and looked around the room with glee. "That seems to clear that up! Severus, I'll take this back, shall I?" He snatched the map up from the desk, folded it and tucked it into his robes.

"Harry, Ron, Adhara, come with me, I need a word about my vampire essay- excuse us, Severus-" He came over to me and my bit of unorganized vials and helped me off the floor, only letting go of my hand once he was sure that I was following.

I glanced at the confused Harry, but none of us said a thing until we were at the entrance hall. "Professor, I-" Harry started. "I don't want to hear explanations." He interrupted, looking around the hall and lowering his voice.

"I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr. Filch many years ago. Yes, I know it's a map." He admitted as all three pairs of our eyebrows rose. "I don't want to know how it fell into your possession. I am, however, astounded that you didn't hand it in. Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around. And I can't let you have it back, Harry." He seemed to accept it, but I was upset.

"Why did Snape think I'd got it from the manufacturers?" "Because…" He prolonged answering the question. "Because these mapmakers would have wanted to lure you out of school. They'd think it extremely entertaining." I crossed my arms, something I only did when extremely entertained.

"You're talking like you know them, professor." If we couldn't have the map, we could at least get some exclusive information about it. "We've met." He glanced curiously at me before turning to Harry with a rather serious expression.

"Don't expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near, it would have more of an effect on you. You parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them- gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks." He obviously knew that Harry has snuck out and he left at that, making us all feel bad. And that's when I knew that I had to keep Harry safe, even if I did have detention.