The second chapter of part 2 has arrived! After I posted the excerpt I managed to get about five pages edited in one day (the privileges of holidays are great) so here it is. No Genevieve in this chapter, but I promise that she is coming in the next chapter. This chapter isn't particularly long, but I personally think it's rather interesting to see so many characters through someone else's eyes. I hope that you all enjoy the chapter and follow, favourite or review (especially review :)). And with no further ado, I give you... (drumroll)... the chapter that you're probably already reading instead of my rambling! ALSO THE STORY HIT 100 FOLLOWERS WHAT THE HECK!

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Part 2: Speak

Andy's footsteps were deafening in her ears as she made her way down the otherwise empty hallway just outside the library. Seeing Stebbins had been a surprise, she hadn't even thought that he and Regulus were on speaking terms, never mind that Stebbins would be willing to offer comfort to her cousin as he mourned. She hoped he managed to do a better job of it than she had done. She had done everything she was supposed to, she had held back her own tears and she had focused on his own grief. She had stayed strong. But strong hadn't been enough, and she didn't want to be strong anymore. She wanted to release the torrent of tears she had been holding back and she wanted to let herself be weak. But she had to stay strong, just for a little bit longer. She had to tell someone about the potion, she needed Genevieve's loved ones to know the truth.

So she walked, stepping forward again and again, getting closer and closer to her destination with every moment.

A sob ripped through her tall frame before she could hold it back, freezing her in her tracks. Her hands flew up to cover her face but she was unable to hold her tears back any longer. The smallest leak in her defences had broken the dam, and once it had broken, she found herself powerless to fight against it. She folded into herself, slipping to the ground as she silently sobbed. Andy leant forward, tears stinging at her eyes as her forehead met the cold floor. Her trembling fingers were buried in her dark locks, sob after sob tearing through her.

Genevieve was gone. Sirius was gone. And Dorcas was… Dorcas was dead. She wasn't foolish, she knew that at least Genevieve would follow her into death soon enough. Her addiction would kill her. Best case scenario, she made it a full month without the potion before her body gave out. And in the impossible case that she didn't die of addiction, she and Sirius wouldn't survive long in the company of death eaters. She had lost both Genevieve and Dorcas for good, and Sirius' chances weren't much better.

But that didn't mean that she could just stay here, crying in an empty hallway. Not while there were still things to be done. She was the only person who knew about the dreamless sleep potions, the only person who knew about Genevieve's addiction. She needed to tell someone. She couldn't let everyone go one believing that Genevieve might return home safe and healthy when she couldn't.

So she reached up to wipe her face clean of tears, rubbing at her puffy eyes as she climbed to her feet. Her vision darkened as she leant against the wall, her wobbly legs threatening to give way. Taking a moment to gather her senses, she glanced down the hallway, her mind concocting horrific images of what might happen when she crossed into Dumbledore's office. Merely speaking of what she had uncovered that morning would hurt like hell, but to then watch peoples reactions would be agonising. At this point however, she was already in so much pain that she doubted a little extra pain would really make any difference.

She should have dragged Genevieve straight to the Hospital wing upon realising the truth. At the time, giving her friend space had seemed like the healthier option for both of them. She had hoped it would allow Genevieve to go to Pomfrey herself. Merlin how she wished that she had done everything differently. She shouldn't have gotten so angry. She should have remained calm, just as a healer was supposed to. But she had gotten angry. She had been livid, unable to understand how anybody could sink so low that they felt the need to poison themselves over a few nights rest. Now though, she could see the appeal. After the events of today, there was no question that nightmares would greet her when she fell asleep and it would be all too easy to simply drink them away.

If she had taken Genevieve to Pomfrey, maybe everything would be different. Genevieve couldn't have been kidnapped, not if she hadn't been in Hogsmeade in the first place. And if Dorcas had known her friend was spending her birthday in the hospital wing, she mightn't have been in the village either. She might be alive.

But as much as she wanted to, she couldn't change the past.

Successfully pushing away from the wall, she started down the hallway, anxiously rubbing at her cheeks in case of any stray tears. She couldn't afford to truly lose her nerve, not yet anyway. She hadn't been to Dumbledore's office since her stint as a Slytherin prefect, but her feet easily retraced the route as she thought back to when one of the newer prefects had mentioned the new password within her earshot. It had been some kind of taffy if she remembered correctly, remaining on theme with the string of sweet related passwords.

The headmaster's office wasn't far from the library and it took her little time to reach it. Staring up at the imposing gargoyle, she felt the knot of nerves caught in her chest tighten.

Taking a deep breath, Andy spoke the name of the first type of taffy she could think of. "Chatting taffy's?"

The gargoyle didn't move an inch.

She began running through every type of taffy sold at Honeydukes. She went through the fruity flavours, the dancing kind, the taffy flavoured fudge, the screaming variations and even the blood infused special's for vampires, but it was to no avail.

Becoming somewhat desperate, she spoke the name of the foulest tasting taffy she knew of (in her opinion anyway). "Saltwater taffy's."

The gargoyle swung open, making her jump back in surprise. She hadn't expected salt water taffy to actually work any more than she had expected kicking the damn gargoyle to succeed in opening the path behind. The twisted staircase that had been revealed was unbelievably tall, but nevertheless, she reached out to grip the bannister and began to climb. It seemed to take forever before she reached the top, and the higher she climbed, the more distinctly she could hear loud voices as they reverberated from within the office. The voices were angry and broken, or at least one of them was; she couldn't quite manage to separate one voice from another.

When she reached the top of the staircase she needed to pause to take a breath. Without Quidditch, her fitness levels had plummeted in favour of her studies. Once she had properly caught her breath, she raised hair hand to knock on the beautiful wooden door.

At that moment a voice exploded from within the room and Andy froze, her closed fist hovering before the door.

"So you're not going to do anything! You're just got to sit back and let those kids suffer."

A deeper, raspier voice responded. "Miss I'm afraid there is very little that we can do to help given that we know nothing of the students' location. I assure you that if we did have an inkling of their location, we would be putting forth every effort to save them."

"By which point they would be dead! All because you made assumptions about the safety of a village frequented by school children. And now a fourteen-year-old is dead, and two more students have been kidnapped! My little girl was kidnapped on her goddamn birthday, did you know that? All because you idiots didn't think."

Andy's fist tightened as the voices quieted, her nails digging crescents into her palms. It was Genevieve's mother. Ms Shafiq was a woman who she had heard about for years, a woman who she had never had the opportunity to meet. She had been so eager to meet her for so long, but suddenly she found that she didn't want to meet her at all. Instead, she wanted to turn and flee and never step foot inside Dumbledore's office. She didn't want to face the woman whose child had been lost. She didn't want to tell her that her child was as good as dead.

But she had to tell her, because knowing the truth was a far kinder fate than living with false hope.

Crushing the instinct to run, she allowed her fist to fall against the door. Once, twice, and the muffled voice from within the office quieted.

"Come in." Dumbledore sighed, his voice sounding far older than it had at the start of term.

A shaky breath fell from her lips and with a trembling hand, she pushed the door open, crossing the threshold. She flinched as the door closed with a sudden snap, noticing a few pairs of eyes widen at the sight of a student.

The office was dotted with Aurors and staff, in fact the only member of staff she couldn't find was Pomfrey. She must have still been healing students. Glancing sideways, she noticed her Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion looking on in vague disgust as a small woman dressed in muggle attire seemed to tower over one of the more official looking Auror's. It was Ms Shafiq, her short stature so similar to her Genevieve's that there was no questioning her identity. Aside from the height, however, Ms Shafiq bore very little resemblance to her daughter, her shock of blonde hair and well-defined muscle a far cry from Genevieve's limp brown locks and seemingly invisible strength that made itself known only on the Quidditch field. For a brief moment she wondered why Ms Shafiq was wearing muggle clothing, but then she supposed that it shouldn't matter for a family that paid such little heed to blood status. On particularly cold days she had certainly spotted the odd well-concealed garment of muggle clothing hidden beneath Genevieve's robes. At the time it had made her envious to know that Ms Shafiq wouldn't punish her friend for such an act in the way that her own parents would.

"Miss Black, I'm afraid this isn't a good time." Said Dumbledore. "Perhaps if you could come back later."

Looking up at the headmaster, she swallowed nervously. "No, I—Please sir, I promise this is really important. It's—It's about Jenny. Genevieve."

Her words were coming out all wrong, rattled with nerves. She would probably be kicked out before she said what she needed to if she kept it up.

"I assure you that we are working on finding a way to help your frie—"

"You'll be too late!" She exploded, her nerves shattering like glass.

Dumbledore froze, his gaze hardening. "What do you mean by that?" His voice was cold and unforgiving, but it calmed her nevertheless. It meant that he would take her seriously, that he would listen to her.

Unshed tears stinging at her eyes, she spoke. "She's addicted to dreamless sleep potion. Without it she'll—she'll die within a month at most."

A broken sob echoed through the room as Andy saw Ms Shafiq stumble from the edges of her peripheral vision, Slughorn reaching out to prevent her from falling as the woman's face twisted with anguish.

"How do you know this?" Dumbledore asked.

"I, I—" Her voice broke as she stared at Ms Shafiq. The woman had a hand pressed over her mouth and she stared at Andy with wide disbelieving eyes, Slughorn supporting her weight as her knees wobbled dangerously.

"Miss Black, I understand this is difficult for you but I need you to tell me anything you can."

She glanced between Ms Shafiq and Dumbledore. "This morning I—She threw up blood and I found—I found the potions under her bed. That's why… that's why we weren't together at Hogsmeade."

"And why did you not take her to the infirmary?" Dumbledore pushed.

"I tried! But I wanted her—I wanted her to go herself so I gave—I gave her a day to go on her own before I took her myself. I'm—I'm so so sorry."

Her frightened gaze was fixed on Ms Shafiq as she spoke. Her actions had cost the woman her child.

She was intruding here. She was intruding on a mothers grief and she needed to leave. It was too—It was too small. She couldn't breathe and she needed to leave. But she couldn't leave, not when she was trapped inside her own body. Something pressed down hard on her chest, sucking the air from her lungs and forcing her to stumble backwards. Scrambling back, she struggled to escape the burning pressure to no avail. Her heart was on fire and it wouldn't stop burning.

The door met her back and she flinched. She was trapped, there was no escape. Voices called out to her but she couldn't hear them properly. It was like she was underwater, her blood pumping too violently, her ears ringing too sharply and her breath rattling too loudly. All other noise blurred together, an undecipherable language. Her thoughts became broken fragments, screaming nonsense at her before shattering as another deafening though cut across it.

It felt like… it felt like she had been walking down a staircase in the dark only to miss a step. Only this time, she couldn't find the next step and she couldn't stop falling between two points that were so close together.

A pair of arms reached out to cage her and she flinched away.

"No, stop it. Please stop it." She begged, blindly pushing at the hands.

Thankfully the arms retreated and she looked up through teary eyes to see a blurry figure before her.

"Andromeda?" The figure called, breaking through the noise of her own breathing. "Andromeda I need you to listen to me. You're studying to be a healer right?"

Andy nodded weakly, squeezing her eyes shut.

"And what spell do you use to heal a broken bone?" The voice asked.

The question was absurd, there was no one way to heal a broken bone. It changed with every individual bone and even then the spell still varied depending on how severe the break was. She told the blurry figure as much, struggling to keep her voice steady.

"And what should you do if someone is choking?"

The figure continued to ask questions until Andy's ears stopped ringing, her vision clearing and her breathing slowing. Her heart still burned with fatigue, but everything else came so much easier. Shacklebolt stood before her, her kind smile touched with sadness.

"Thank you." She murmured, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

"You know as well as I do that it was beyond your control, what with all of that healer study you're doing. You have nothing to be sorry for."

Shacklebolt turned back to the others. "Can we get another chair?"

With a wave of his wand, Dumbledore conjured another armchair much like those that her aunt and uncle were perched atop. Glancing and Orion and Walburga, she cringed at their expressions and quickly seated herself in the supplied seat.

"Sorry," she mumbled again, staring down at her lap.

"Will you be able to answer some questions for us?" Dumbledore asked.

She nodded, chewing on her lip as her eyes darted back and forth between her relatives and her shoes.

"Do you know how long Miss Shafiq has been using the potions?"

"Since a few weeks into the school year, I think. She wasn't able to sleep properly and then suddenly she was fine."

"Why was she not able to sleep?"

"I—I don't know." She said, nervously picking dirt from her nails as she glanced at Orion and Walburga yet again. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for my girl." Dumbledore reassured. "How d—"

A cough interrupted him. It was Walburga, her silver eyes flashing with irritation. "Is there any reason for us to remain here? We're clearly not going to be discussing our son any time soon."

"Miss Shafiq and Mr Black were kidnapped together," Dumbledore said with a frown. "I would have thought that any information regarding either of them would affect the other as well."

"Even so," her uncle drawled. "Must we stay?"

The headmaster eyed the pair in surprise. Clearly, he had been unaware of the discontent within the Black family.

"We can supply quarters for you to stay in for the time being. If you wouldn't mind staying within the castle for a little longer we would like to send your younger son home with you, perhaps your niece too. We are allowing relatives of those who have been injured or… injured or killed leave from school."

"Very well." Walburga snapped. "Will someone lead us to the quarters or are we expected to simply wander about until we happen to find them?"

Dumbledore inclined his head to the Herbology professor. "Arnold, could you please escort Mr and Mrs Black to the guest quarters? The rooms near the astronomy tower please."

Beery nodded, leading the pair out of the office.

Once their footsteps had quieted Dumbledore turned a concerned eye to Genevieve's mother. "Ms Shafiq? Perhaps you should retire for the day as well. We can speak more in the morning."

She gave an imperceptible nod, withdrawing her hand from Slughorn's supporting arm. "I don't—Do I have to stay next to them?"

Dumbledore shook his head, smiling kindly and Andy found herself wondering what had taken place between Ms Shafiq and her aunt and uncle before she arrived. "We have rooms closer to the dungeons if you would prefer?"

"That would—That would be nice thank you."

Uncharacteristically quiet, Slughorn led Ms Shafiq to the door and before she knew what she was doing, Andy was calling out to her, gaze still stubbornly fixed on her shoes.

"He's not like them. Sirius, their son. He's not like—He's not like his parents. He'll try to help her."

She looked up just in time to see a sad smile cross Ms Shafiq's face before it flickered out of existence. "It's Andy, right? Genevieve's Andy?"

She nodded.

"I'm sorry for Dorcas, and I'm sorry that you have to go through this. You're all much too young."

Andy felt as if she should say something in response, but she wasn't sure how to articulate what she wanted to say so instead, she simply watched as Slughorn and Ms Shafiq turned away, exiting the office.

"Now," the most official Auror said snidely. "If you wouldn't mind letting the professionals handle this Headmaster?"

Dumbledore quirked a brow. "By all means, go ahead."

Grinning smugly, the Auror turned to her and Andy found herself gritting her teeth in determination. She would be able to do this. If not for Genevieve, then she would be able to do it for Ms Shafiq.