Happy Friday! Sorry for the later update, I'm tired! XD There's also a nasty storm outside, so I better post before we lose power. Enjoy!

Chapter 37

It was later that evening when Jasmine found herself dozing in front of the fire in the common room. The chill from that afternoon still hadn't left her bones and the fire was one of the only things that she found that truly warmed her up after a dementor attack. She'd told Lily as much when her roommate had caught her sneaking back downstairs. Jasmine was glad that Lily didn't push for further details, she just wasn't up for her inquiries today. "Just make sure that you're awake in time for breakfast," Lily warned, before Jasmine descended the stairs with a grateful smile and a halfhearted wave.

It was nice when Lily knew when to give her space. It was leaps and bounds better than the beginning of term. Jasmine hadn't been in a talking mood this evening, barely giving anyone more than grunts after she left the infirmary. She more than likely should have stayed, but Pomfrey was overwhelmed with volume of students she had to take care of, not to mention identify the husks of a few students the dementors had feasted upon. So far two first years had died, neither had lived to see Harriet's future as far as she knew. Fate took them one way or another.

Dumbledore and Brightbark left her alone, after the deaths started being reported. She proved her innocence for the time being…until they found something else to blame her for. The headmaster had more pressing matters to attend to, sending letters out to families regarding the death of their children was enough to even stop Dumbledore's scheming in its tracks. Jasmine hoped that they find whoever destroyed the warding on Hogsmeade.

Jasmine doubted she'd sleep at all tonight. The screams of her dying friends over the span of nine lives filled her ears constantly and grisly images of wars yet to come swam in her vision. She hoped the kids that lost their lives found peace in the afterlife. Death owed them that much for having their souls taken so young.

The quiet cracking of fire did little to calm her as she shifted on the sofa once more, her winter robe only just covering sock clad feet. Jasmine was tired and irritated, but the dementor attack left her with a tad bit of insomnia. Every time she attempted to sleep her nightmares would materialize behind her eyes. There were just too many dead and mutilated bodies that had been drudged up from her memories to allow her to rest.

So, here she was, the Master of Death, shivering in front of a fire, afraid to close her eyes. She knew that it would be some time before she could truly access her powers, but it still made her feel useless and cold…

"You couldn't sleep either?" A voice croaked from behind her. Jasmine jumped her wand pointed and ready, but it dropped rather quickly when she realized that it was just Sirius, clad only in a loose muggle t-shirt he had to have bought to piss his mother off and thin sleep pants. Not something an heir to ancient and noble family should be wearing, at any rate.

Much like Jasmine, he had been released as soon as he had eaten some chocolate and checked on Remus. The werewolf had been properly panicked by the time both James and Sirius had made their way shakily over to him. The three of them then had a manly cuddle puddle together on Remus' bed until Pomfrey shooed them out.

Though, looking at him now, shaking and twitching, Jasmine wondered if that had been a good idea on Madam Pomfrey's part to let him out. Sirius looked worse for wear and Jasmine saw him after he had almost been paralyzed in a duel. His eyes were a dull, haunted grey and he looked as cold as Jasmine felt, even though he had a comforter wrapped around his tall frame, he was shivering. Maybe both of them should have stayed in the hospital wing overnight…

"No, dementors tend to have that effect on people," she replied patting the spot next to her on the couch. Honestly, she felt like she was calling a dog.

He shuffled over to her and stretched out over the majority of the cushions, leaning against Jasmine like a pillow. He wiggled around to get comfortable. "You're not very soft," he muttered, after five minutes of constant fidgeting. His hair getting in her mouth as said this.

"I'm not stuffed full of feathers, Sirius," she grunted patting his long, rather curly, hair out of her face.

"You're bloody corded muscle is what you are," he grumbled shifting against her side until he found a more comfortable position. He draped the blanket he'd brought over both of them. It smelled like his aftershave, he must have pulled it right off of his bed.

"I'd hope after all the combat training I'd had that I gained some muscle from it. Sorry that I don't make a good pillow for you," she replied, pulling her feet up and under the blanket. At least she wasn't cold anymore between the two of them they should be able to chase away some of the dementor's chill.

This wasn't a very comfortable position, they were rather squished, but they knew that there was another person in the room at all times. Human contact was the best cure for this kind of emptiness.

"It's a shame is what it is, but I wouldn't have you any other way."

She rolled her eyes and lightly knocked her head against his. "Good to know…how are you holding up?"

The attack had to be the last thing that either of them wanted to talk about, but it was a conversation that they needed to have. Jasmine knew Sirius would rather never speak of it again, make jokes about it, but it wouldn't do either of them any good. She was mature enough to realize that. Jasmine also knew from experience that Sirius would brood on this if she left him alone. "Awful. Prongs is off sleeping like nothing happened, but I…just…"

"Keep reliving the worst moments of your life over and over again?"

He nodded, sighing against her shoulder, rubbing his forehead into her arm.

"It's what dementors were created to do. They are attracted to those who have been marked by trauma and death. Your mother's treatment of you would have drawn them to you like a moth to a flame. As soon as I entered the area they swarmed me."

He shivered against her, she could feel his hand twitch against her arm, a phantom pain from his mother's torture no doubt. "How do you know so much about dementors?"

Jasmine honestly had never come in direct contact with a dementor, but Harriet, well she knew them too well. So, she decided to merge her lives a little bit. "My patrons…they trained me using boggarts…my greatest fear is fear. It always takes the form of a dementor. So, when they would train me, I'd feel the effect of a dementor, but have none of the actual soul sucking. I had to learn the patronus charm at a young age," she explained, running a soothing hand through his hair as she told her story.

The rhythmic motion seemed to calm them both somewhat. "Your patrons were bastards, I hope you know that."

Jasmine grinned, feeling the scar on her lip curl slightly. The rune next to her eye stung at the reminder of her lovely former life. "I'm more than aware of that, Sirius, but I'm glad that you feel the same way about them as I do."

He hummed something in reply and his breathing eventually evened out. He had fallen asleep half on top of her. Jasmine sighed and leaned her head back against the couch. She wasn't sure if she was going to be able to catch a wink of sleep, but she closed her eyes and hoped for the best.

The feeling of little paws pushing into her face was first thing that Jasmine noticed as she was waking up the next morning. "Ro, it's too early for your nonsense," she muttered, as her mind cleared up enough to register that there was a large weight on top of her. It took a moment for her to realize what, or rather, who, that was. She nearly shoved Sirius off of her, the mutt was snoring rather close to her ear, it was a miracle he hadn't woken her up on his own.

She let out a quiet groan, Jasmine couldn't believe that she had fallen asleep in the common room. By the looks of things, it was still early in the morning, maybe around six in the morning. Students were going to start waking up soon and Jasmine didn't need more rumors than there already were about her and Sirius circulating around the castle.

Sirius, ever the graceful sleeper, had his mouth slightly agape and quiet snores were escaping every few breaths. His normally wavy hair was a mess of curls around his face and neck. "Sirius, get up," she whispered, shaking his shoulders with just enough force to get him to crack an eye open.

"What? I was having a lovely dream…" he replied, sitting up, his hand on her leg as he righted himself. Jasmine gave him ten seconds before she picked his hand off her thigh. As his mind caught up with where they were his ears began to turn red and his hand moved when he realized he wasn't touching the couch.

"Bloody hell, I'm sorry," he apologized, springing away from her. The comforter sliding off the two of them. Jasmine was wearing loose fitting flannel pajamas, her sleeping robe had untied itself during the night. It was nothing revealing, but at the same time, it was a lot more intimate seeing her in her nightclothes after using her as a pillow the night before.

This was also a large no-no when it came to propriety in Pureblood culture. Sirius may be the Playboy of Hogwarts, but he knew better than to actually take a woman to bed. That would be seen as signing a marriage contract. Luckily, Jasmine wasn't one to care too much about propriety, nor had she actually been taken to bed. Bed had come to them and neither of them had been invested in anything other than sleeping.

She waved her hand before using it to rub some of the sleep out of her eyes. "Don't worry about it. At least we have the day off due to the attack. Everyone is more than likely sleeping in," Jasmine replied with, a yawn passing her lips. "I'm going up to bed for another few hours of sleep. I'll see you in a few hours."

Jasmine got up, and shuffled towards her soon to be five flight climb to her bed. Sirius grabbed her wrist before she could make her assent up the stairs to the girl's dorm. "Look, I shouldn't have stayed the night down here. It isn't right for you to just brush off such a blatant act of disrespect. You saved my life yesterday and-"

Jasmine put a hand to his mouth to cut him off. "Sirius, you don't need to worry about my virtue. No one saw us down here, and if anyone says anything, we deny it. We both just needed someone who understood the pain of a dementor attack. Your options were limited, don't fret over this."

Sirius was grinning now, canines poking through. "So, we just keep acting the same as ever then? Drive the rumor mill crazy?"

She shrugged, a small smile blooming on her scarred lips. "Let them all drive themselves mad. We don't need to do anything, but sit pretty."

"So, nothing difficult for the two of us. You know, we've really taken the pressure off of Prongs and Evans. They had been the talk of Hogwarts rumors for years. I know Evans hated it, she seems a bit calmer now," Sirius said, suddenly introspective. Jasmine wondered if he was fishing for information for James.

"Well, I'm glad that I could help give Hogwarts a proper show of how baseless rumors can be," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"I hope that you know what you're doing, Jazz. I don't know if Lily is the right girl for Prongs and ever since you got here, and calmed him down, she's been paying more attention to him. I don't want my best mate getting hurt because you somehow pushed them together," Sirius warned before letting her go.

"Sirius, the last thing I want is for James to get hurt. He's some of the only family I have left in this world. I'd do just about anything for my family," she replied, her voice never wavering. She'd go to the ends of the Earth to save the Potter family. Sirius knew that, or at least, she was reaffirming it.

The Marauder gave her one last nod before he left her to wander up the stairs to her bed for the rest of the morning.

Jasmine happily went towards her room, her pillows were begging for someone to sleep on them and as soon as her head hit them, she was out like a light. All thoughts of the dementors gone and in their place were thoughts of family.

She could feel herself being pulled into a dream like state. It was nothing like the times that she had passed out, but she could still feel Death's cold magic washing over the area. She looked around to find herself at an indistinguishable park, just generic oak benches, a concrete pathway and trees lining the area. It wasn't long before she noticed that she was Harriet again, her soul reflecting who she really was on the inside.

"And here I thought that I was going to be the only one here," a familiar voice commented dryly.

Harri launched herself at the young man, tall and broad shouldered, dark skin poking through his button-up shirt. He caught her with a practiced ease that spoke of lifetimes of experience. It was Blaise, she had missed him. It was so different seeing him in this odd in between realm that Death had created for them.

"How are you here?"

"I'd assume the same way that Death manages to call us all here," Theo replied as he materialized next to them. It was great to hear his voice again. Death had been rather cruel to silence him. She knew that the deity had done it on purpose, he could be that petty when it came to Theo.

"It's good to hear you speak again," Harri commented and Theo rolled his eyes, not appreciating her humor at all. How ungrateful.

Blaise hummed, still hugging Harri. It didn't seem like he had any intention of letting go anytime soon. "I'm not sure that I agree. I really like this new mute Theo. It lets me make the rules. I've never gotten to do that before."

"Yes, and we've almost gotten killed twice. So, please, be my guest and continue to not listen to damn thing I tell you."

Harri could imagine the shit eating grin of Blaise's face. Blaise was the most daring out of the three of them and took far more risks than were strictly necessary. He'd died the earliest out of the three of them in most of their lives. He'd rather go down in a blaze of glory than stay at home and plot like Theo.

"Trouble in paradise?" The chilling voice a Death asked as he appeared right over Theo's shoulder, causing the usually stoic young man to jump.

Harri cleared her throat before her good friend could start a fight.

"Is there something that you needed?"

The cloaked figure in front of her only cocked his head to the side and smiled under his hood. "I just wanted to see how you reacted to me summoning all three of you at once. It doesn't seem to take near the same amount of magic as it did with just you, my Master," he replied, ever emphasizing his possessiveness over her.

"We figured that would happen when we agreed to enter those other bodies. We did this to take off part of the magical burden from Harri, it shouldn't be surprising, Death," Theo snapped, stepping between Harri and Death.

It was touching that they had entered new bodies just to help her manage the power that came with being the master of Death.

"Is there a reason that you placed Blaise and Theo so far away from me? The three of us have always worked well together, it's significantly more difficult having them across the pond," Harri questioned from Blaise's arms, though he finally seemed to find it in him let her go. She pouted when she slid back down onto the ground.

Theo groaned and ran a hand through his hair. His brown eyes glaring daggers at Death. "He seemed to think it would be better if we could gather some international assistance, but he has no idea about social conventions in MUSCA, so Blaise and I are essentially outcasts to the American wizards."

Blaise shrugged, a smug grin plastered on his face, "amongst our own little conglomerate of magicals we're quite popular. We killed quite a few nasty MUSCA Aurors when they invaded our land and lived to tell the tale."

Of course that's what Blaise was proud of.

"MUSCA started to kill native magicals in the Americas again?"

Theo snorted, his wavy locks falling in his eyes as he cocked his head to the side. "They never stopped. They don't like the way that we practice magic, so they're trying to eradicate it. We're fairly well hidden, so they haven't found us yet. Our original hosts want us to help stop MUSCA from attacking their people."

"Well, I think I can help with that, I've got some international pull. If you help me with my horcrux hunting, I can help you both with your social issues. I need some fancy dark magic detecting objects and I'd heard rumors a few lives ago that you might just have some answers to that," she replied, a large grin making its way onto her face. She rocked back and forth on her heels in anticipation.

Blaise tapped her nose with his pointer finger. "Oh, Harri, do we have a story for you."

So, what do you think Blaise is going to tell Harri? It's going to be some time before you all find out. ;) Anyway, what did you think of a chapter with fluff and cuddles? We've had some pretty intense chapters recently, so I thought it was time for something a bit sweet with little no negativity. I mean, dead kids in the beginning was a bit dark, but it's war out there. The rest was just fluff.

Okay, I'm going to address a few review questions that I've been getting a lot of recently as to why Jasmine isn't doing anything more to stop Dumbledore...here's the simple answer: she's fifteen and a foreign witch. She might be heir to a powerful family, but that family hasn't been active on British soil for at least two generations and she's still just a kid, no matter how many lives she's lived through, no one else knows that. She's trying to pick up the pieces her grandfather left behind and is hoping that the adults in the wizarding world will actually do something. Euphemia tries her best, but no one wants to go against Dumbledore, he did defeat Grindelwald after all.

Anyway, thank you all so much for the reviews, favorites and follows. You guys are the best! Some of you have shown interest in a playlist, I will start to create one soon, promise.

So excited for next week, new album from one of my favorite artists comes out next week. (ARMY where you at?) =D

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you next week,
~Animerocker