hey, how we all enjoying it so far?

While Harry's talk had convinced Mila that she should let Sirius and Lupin talk to her, she still couldn't bring herself to face them. So instead she looked for Draco, still too afraid of answers to questions she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

She searched all around the Slytherin Common Room, but he wasn't there. It was nearing midday, he wouldn't be asleep. Was he out looking for her? Somehow that made her feel worse.

Any guilt that Mila felt about leaving, was mostly directed towards him. Harry understood the situation because he was apart of it. His close friends had lied to him the same way they had to Mila.

Draco was an outsider, even if he wasn't to Mila. He'd never been to Sirius Black's house, never stepped foot in the Burrow, and certainly had never been taken in by Remus Lupin. He wasn't in this like she was. She didn't know if that was a good thing, or bad thing. How had he felt when he found out she was gone?

Careful to listen out for voices she wasn't ready to meet, she searched the castle and all the spots she figured he might be.

She had the idea to check the Honeydukes passage. It had been becoming 'their' place, it would make sense if, when unsure about her, he would be there.

With this new idea came a sense of urgency that had her completely forgetting about her self-imposed quiet tread. And her keen ears.

She turned around another passage and ran directly into one of the people she was trying to avoid.

Her face hardened. Draco was forgotten.

"Mila." Sirius was, for lack of a better word, startled.

It was a rare feeling for him, one that didn't quite fit him. Mila found she barely recognised Sirius when he wasn't confident, or sure of himself. His hair was scruffy, his beard untrimmed. She tried not to take too much note of his shaggy appearance.

She was at a loss. She wasn't about to just stand here and chat to him in the hallway. She couldn't picture anything she would rather do less. But there was something about the way he said her name. Something that made her angry. He said it with a claim of a friend, but she wasn't feeling particularly friendly.

"Sirius."

"How- ahem- how have you been?"

"I'm not doing that," she rebuffed.

"Mila-"

"How do you think I've been?"

She didn't allow him to answer, instead she brushed past him, trying to go back on the path she had intended.

He grabbed ahold of her, which he had never done before. This was a different Sirius entirely, one who took more liberty than the kind 'uncle-figure' she had always known. It was scary.

"If you let me explain-"

"Explain!" she outraged, "I can't even look at you right now. I thought I could hear you out, Harry made me think I could, but I see you and I'm just so angry."

There was a jolt of something. Familiarity. A moment in Mila's head, which seemed so tangible, but she could not grab onto it. Sirius saw it in her face.

"See? There. You know you are more than this, you know there is something missing."

She was too shocked to move. The feeling had rushed through her so quickly she was dizzy.

Sirius continued. "And because I know you, Mila, I know that you will seek it out." He relinquished his hold on her. "I'm not going to force you, because I know you will come find me when you're ready."

His movements seemed so slow to her, before he started to turn away, her voice managed to escape it's strange captivity.

"How do you know that?"

How could he possibly think she could forgive him? Him, Lupin, Hermione, the whole blasted lot.

"Because," he said, his eyes bore sharply into hers. "There was a time when I knew you better than I knew myself."

His voice had been gentle, and he strode away in that dramatic way only Sirius Black knew how. It left her shaken. The anger made way into confusion and a sheer desire to run away and never come back. But she'd already done that. Kind of.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make sense of the lurch she had experienced. But it had left her completely.

She didn't know how she had ignored this strange undercurrent her whole life. How had signs, that now seemed so obvious, completely escaped her? It hit her then, quite suddenly, that she had a whole life she knew nothing about.

A whole life. Sirius had known her. He'd talked to her. He'd considered her a friend. She'd said things should couldn't remember, and done things she couldn't remember.

Why, that was simply… terrifying.

It turns out, finding Draco didn't take very long.

When entering the Honeydukes passage, she wasn't at all surprised to see him.

Draco leaned casually against a wall, as if he was expecting her. He always seemed to know her next move.

"Draco," she started, but found she had no words to fit the situation.

"Lovett."

"Back to that, are we?" An old joke. It seemed funnier the first time.

He didn't reply.

She walked closer to him. He hadn't even glanced in her direction yet. It seemed her worries were coming to fruition. She had hurt him, badly.

She was only just coming down from her interaction with Sirius, and Draco's silence tipped her over the edge.

She started crying. Something Mila Lovett never did. Not big wallowing sobs, but a small heartbroken cry that only came when you felt completely lost.

She sat on the ground, leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She felt him walk over to her.

"Mila?"

"Look, don't say anything, ok? I know you're mad at me. But I've been having a really bad day, and I would just like to sit with someone who had nothing to do with it. So if that's alright with you, I'm just going to wallow in the dark for a bit."

Her eyes squeezed even tighter, and she pressed the palms of her hand into them.

She'd been spooked ever since the Velma incident, and it was all making its way out. Hermione had lied to her, Sirius and Lupin had lied to her, she'd lost twenty years of memories and she'd only just realised how much of a loss that was.

Maybe she had been a better person. Maybe she hadn't been the selfish, cowardly shell of Mila that presently existed in this passage. Mila hadn't felt like herself in a long time.

Draco sat down next to her, like he had many times before. There was now a handful of times where she had sought him for solace. Their relationship had changed so much this past year.

"Sorry," she sniffed, "I'm being selfish, again. You don't have to comfort me. I understand I upset you. Believe me, it was the last thing I wanted."

She wiped her eyes. Her quick burst was over with.

"You've really put me in a spot here, haven't you, Lovett?" His voice was gentle, there was no malice.

She laughed tearfully. "What was it you said? I'm hard work?"

"Some hard work is worth doing."

She met his eyes for the first time during their conversation. It was time to be honest.

"I don't know how much you know. But the night that they told me, I was so freaked out. I didn't think. I just left," she said.

His eyes were vulnerable. Even though he wanted to comfort her, he couldn't stop his own hurt from creeping to the surface.

"They told me what they told you. About your… other life. They said it was some huge secret, and that I couldn't tell anyone."

"I'm sorry I put you in that position."

Draco cleared his throat. "That's not what I'm sorry about. This is where I wanted to be. I wanted to be someone you confided in. I wanted to be with you, Mila."

Wanted. It was the first time either of them had said it aloud. They'd always skirted around the edges, neither taking the final step. But, still. Wanted. Not want.

'But you left," he continued, his voice sounded resigned, like he'd had a long time to get used to her not being there.

"I'm not sorry that I left." She urged on, not wanting him to misunderstand. "I'm sorry that I didn't take you with me."

He took her hand. She found comfort in the simple touch.

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked.

The way he said it, made it feel like it was not so dire. What was she going to do now? What was next? The future was laid out like some foggy haze she couldn't make sense of. So, how was she going to make sense of it?

"I think that you want answers," he observed. "If I know you like I think I do, Lovett, you'll need them."

"Yeah," she finally admitted aloud, "I do."

Mila waltzed into the Great Hall, determined. She'd picked herself up, and dusted herself off.

"Great, you're all here."

Draco followed in behind her to join the group. Lupin, Sirius, Albus, McGonagall, her school friends, and even Professor Snape.

Mila's eyes caught Sirius'. "Ok, explain."

Sirius met Lupin's confused eye. Neither was expecting quite such a forceful entry, nor a Mila who was, albeit stubbornly, ready to listen to them.

Mila hadn't seen Lupin yet, and felt the natural sting of hurt when seeing him again for the first time. Lupin, eyes tired and resigned, gave a little nod to her. She didn't nod back.

"Well," Dumbledore said, "Perhaps we should-"

"Actually," Mila interrupted, "I'll be asking the questions here."

Dumbledore blinked, and Lupin, though she didn't see, looked a little bit proud.

"Very well."

Mila walked over to the Gryffindor table, and sat on top of it. Draco gave her an unsure look, but she gestured to him to, please, sit next to her. Harry gave her a small smile.

There were a lot of people in this room, Mila noted. She was at different places with all of them, she didn't know how to act. But what she did know, was that she wanted to take charge of this conversation. That was her right.

One question on her mind bore more heavily than others. There was an urgency to understand where she came from. "Did you know who my parents were?"

That was the thing that had started this whole mess. It was the discovery of the locket, that was led to the initial questioning of those around her, and the information they withheld. In the end, they had known she was looking for them. Had they known all along?

Lupin answered, rising from his seat at the next table. "You were Lovett to us now, and Lovett to us then."

Disappointing. She still had no hope of ever learning about the family she had never known.

But Lupin continued, "But your mother, you used to say she died when you were very young."

Mila felt a pound in her chest. "I knew my mother?"

She'd known a member of her family? How was that possible? She had been abandoned in an orphanage. Visited only once, by a father who had given her this locket. Or at least, that was the story she had pieced together.

"You can be a very private person, Mila. I don't know much about her. You just said, she was unfit to care for you, and you were raised in an orphanage, just as you were now."

"So she was not a Rosier wife?" Mila asked. More confusion, more questions, more mystery. Why was everything so messed up?

Dumbledore was the one to speak this time. "Alas, no. We did not know the identity of your father until Hermione told us what you had discovered."

Hermione avoided anyone's eye contact.

Dumbledore continued. "We, the Order, have since looked into it. Your father was indeed a Rosier, but you were not born to his wife."

Mila wasn't feeling the control she desired. Thirty seconds in and they'd already pulled out the rug from under her. She had been born out of wedlock. No wonder she hadn't been wanted.

Her young friends stayed silent, all throwing her equally pitying looks. Sirius, was not. He was looking at her like she could handle this.

"What does it matter, Mila?" he said, "You didn't care about them back then, and you shouldn't now. We have always been your family."

She looked at him harshly, still distressed by the news. But, underneath it all, she could see he was right. Or at least he believed he was. Maybe her previous self had been happy with the family she had created, but that family hadn't lied to her. This present Mila, had been.

She directed her questions to Albus, unable to look at anyone else. "You know who he was?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"Tell me."

"His name was Mitar Rosier. His son, Evan, your half-brother, went to school with you in the seventies.

"Brother?" Albus Dumbledore certainly didn't pull back any punches.

"Albus," Minerva warned, but it did not deter him.

"Mitar attended Hogwarts as well. He graduated in 1945 with-"

"Voldemort," Mila finished. It had been like she feared. She came from death-eaters, but even worse, a death-eater's sleazy affair. Velma had been right, she was born from sin.

She was surprised she could speak. "And my mother, she was…"

"A muggle."

Muggle. A pureblood Slytherin, and a muggle. She wasn't the muggleborn she had believed, nor the pureblood she had suspected.

"I'm a halfblood," she whispered to herself. Then a little louder, "I need to sit down."

Ron chose that moment to pipe up. "You are sitting down."

"I need to sit down somewhere else."

She stepped down from the table, and squeezed her eyes open and shut. This was totally, and completely, not going well.

"How- how did you find out?" Her words stumbled out of her mouth.

McGonagall put a hand on Dumbledore's arm to shush him, and decided to answer Mila herself. "When you found your family name, we looked into Evan Rosier's artefacts. In his later years, he wrote in a journal, he spoke often of his father's great shame. And…"

"And?"

"We recovered a memory. A pensieve was kept in a home, and the memory was left untouched for seventeen years."

"A memory, from my father?" The word felt wrong in Mila's mouth.

McGonagall nodded unhappily. "Yes, Mila."

All it had taken was for her and Draco to open the door. It taken a great deal of effort to even obtain a last name. How easy it had been for the Order to gather this information? But what scared her more was that they were sharing it so liberally. That wasn't like the Order at all.

Mila's face hardened once more. "Why are you telling me all this?"

A part of her knew it was because she simply deserved to know. She'd been steeped in secrets her whole life. Harry's friendship had resulted in her being on the inside, but even with being in this inner circle, the amount the adults shielded them from was staggering.

It was no surprise to her that Dumbledore had more to say, contradicting McGonagall.

"Mila, it is your memory. From your own mind. And with this memory, we have the potential to unlock your previous life for you. You will be able to remember everything."

And there it was. Albus Dumbledore's motive was suddenly entirely clear to her. He wanted the old Mila back, because she had something he needed.

There were a few, simultaneous, reactions to the news Dumbledore had just unleashed.

McGonagall hissed Albus' name, obviously not prepared to give up this information so quickly. Draco seemed to tense beside her, and Harry threw her an alarming look.

"Is this true?" Sirius was torn between anger and shock.

"Albus, what is the meaning of this?" Lupin was pure anger.

Hermione and Snape looked like the only two to have any idea of what was going on.

And Mila, she stayed silent. Her chest was heavy. She tried to remember what breathing felt like.

Dumbledore ignored all this others. His eyes were locked onto Mila, and his gaze only added to the weight.

She didn't know where it came from, but her voice was strong when she finally found it.

"Absolutely not."

She was not going to let them upheave her life more than they already had.

An argument began to form. Sirius and Lupin were visibly angry, but Mila didn't know if it was only because they hadn't been told. She was sure they'd want her to remember just as much, if not more than Albus. She had agreed to come back, but she had certainly not agreed to this.

"How could you spring this on her? What in Godric's name were you thinking?" Lupin said.

"Albus, we were not supposed to divulge this information. Mila's too temperamental, we were suppose to take our time," Minerva added.

"We are running out of time, Minerva," Albus said.

They continued on, nobody noticed when Mila slipped out.

Harry sat with Ron and Hermione. The three of them had been left to their own devices, the others had taken their argument elsewhere.

"Poor Mila," Ron sighed. They just kept throwing curveballs at her, and one day it was going to knock her over completely.

Harry nodded mutely. He'd been clamming up in Hermione's presence since he found out about her involvement. He tried to shove it aside, for the sake of their friend.

"She's not going to let them restore her memory, she said it herself," Harry said.

"Dumbledore won't give up so easily. He will try to convince her," Hermione answered.

Harry threw her a harsh look. "Why? If she doesn't want to, then why force her?"

"He won't tell me," Hermione admitted. "Look, Harry, I've told you everything I know, ok. Please stop treating me like I have more to hide."

"It's kind of hard to believe you, Hermione, considering what you kept from us for so long."

Hermione had tried many ways to get Harry to forgive her. She hadn't tried anger before.

"What was I supposed to do, Harry? I didn't ask to be entrusted with this damn secret!"

A feeling crept over Harry that he hadn't expected. Jealousy. "Well, why wasn't I?"

"Guys, please-" Ron tried.

"Because they knew how you felt about her. They knew you would tell her." Hermione was growing upset.

"Because I'm her friend, Hermione. That's what friends are supposed to do!"

Ron stood. "Alright, that's enough. I know it's hard, mate, but I'm not going to let you sit here and yell at her like this."

Harry stood too. "Fine."

He left the hall angrily. He walked to a nearby broom cupboard and plonked himself down.

After a few minutes, his head grew clearer, and he tried to process the night's events.

In all honesty, he understood why Hermione had done what she did. He even, way down deep, forgave her. At the end of the day, she was family. Tonight's revelation had just put him on edge.

When he thought about the fact that his own godfather had had a whole life with his best friend, it was… weird. Sirius cared about Mila, it was plain as day, and it had been hard for Harry to comprehend. Harry had often caught himself wondering, if back in the day, Mila had felt similarly. But he hadn't had to concern himself too much with that. Until now.

He didn't know what Mila remembering her previous life would do to her. How it would change her. She would be different, but how different? She would know things about Sirius and Lupin, in the same way that she knew things about him. Would she seem older? When you added it all up, she'd been alive for almost 38 years. The same age as Sirius and Lupin. With memories of them he couldn't even begin to touch on.

And memories of his dad, he realised. Mila had been friends with James Potter. She would know more about his father than he did. And that in itself, was startling.

Harry Potter did not want Mila to remember these things. He wanted her to stay exactly as she was, because she had been the thing to keep him going all these years. She was his pure, and untouchable, joy. Remembering would mean she would become something else. And, selfishly, he didn't want that to happen.

Mila heard a knock on her bedroom door. It was funny, she thought, that the place she had, only last night, felt revolted by, was the place she had run to.

She expected Harry, maybe Draco, but didn't have a clue how they could bypass the charm that kept boys away from the girl's dorms.

Mila had thought a lot about what Dumbledore had said, and she wondered why it was so important that they completely rearrange her into someone she was afraid she wouldn't recognise.

If she recovered her lost life, she might understand. But right now, as her own self, she didn't want to understand. Understanding meant forgiveness, and she was still so hurt by all of this, that she didn't want to forgive, even if it meant missing out on two decades. Especially then. She would not touch those memories with a ten foot pole.

So, she opened the door, and had to resist slamming it back when the two figures became clear.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

Lupin spoke. "Trust us when we say, we had no idea that it was even possible."

She couldn't deny the truth to that statement, she had seen the same shock on their faces that she was sure mirrored her own. Then she realised these were the first words Remus Lupin had spoken to her in five weeks.

"We're here to speak to you on our own," Lupin continued.

"If you think you're going to talk me into-"

"That's not what we're doing, Mila," Sirius piped up. She remembered earlier, when he had felt so familiar to her.

"So, what, you're here to reminisce? No, thank you."

Sirius withdrew the map from his pocket. She stared down at it, frowning at the object. However, to the three of them, it wasn't just an object. It was a symbol of a life that had been taken from her.

Sirius touched his wand to the paper, and the names of five member's were brought to the surface.

"This here," he said, "Is your name next to ours. We built this together. If I recall, you said something about using this to place stink bombs in the Slytherin common room vents." He smiled fondly at the memory.

Mila did not. She tried to hide her shaking hand, and looked at the two men in front of her.

They were not people she recognised. Lupin was her teacher, and Sirius her best friend's godfather, but now they were two entirely new people. They didn't look at her with authority. They looked at her, as if they were equals. Because they remembered a time she was one of their most treasured friends. They had so few of them left.

In that moment, and only that moment, it was hard not to feel sorry for them. "You have to understand," she said, "It's so hard to look at you and try and picture what you describe."

"Then let us help you," Sirius said. "No tricks, just answers."

"Answers."

She liked the sound of that.