A/N: This chapter is dedicated to new favoriter, queen of the unknow universe! Welcome to the family, and long may you enjoy!

-C

Lydia's first clue that something was terribly wrong came with most of the rest of the castle: Gryffindor's stash of rubies demarking their points were short by one hundred fifty points, Slytherin's a by fifty. She had a sinking feeling Severus might somehow be responsible but was surprised to see Minerva looking especially steely and stern when she arrived for breakfast.

"It was regrettable," she said to Lydia, soft enough that the students couldn't hear, "but students out of bed must be dealt with harshly, particularly when the students clearly are starting what looks like a long-standing grudge."

"What, were the Weasley twins dueling the Slytherin Chasers again?"

"No," Minerva said, her lips twitching in either amusement or disapproval, Lydia couldn't be certain. "It was a convoluted mess. Mr. Malfoy was convinced that Mr. Potter and Miss Granger would be dealing with a dragon, and he had poor Mr. Longbottom convinced of it as well. Had they not been waiting to see Mr. Malfoy take the bait, perhaps it would have only been fifty each, but as it was—"

"Wait," Lydia said, puzzled and horrified, "did you just say dragon?"

There was a sinking in the pit of her stomach, and it didn't have everything to do with Harry being involved in such a massive loss of points.

"Yes," Minerva sniffed. "As if I would ever believe such a ridiculous tale. They have each been assigned detention, and the loss of points was severe. I can only hope this will keep them from carrying on their ridiculous feud for seven long years."

Lydia wanted to ask if that had ever worked, as she knew it didn't work with her year, but she was too preoccupied. She looked down at the Gryffindor table and saw Harry looking like he wanted to sink through the chair, into the floor, and have the earth swallow him up. Lydia had felt that same thing more than a few times in her life, and she wished she could just snap her fingers and fix it. She also wanted to ask what he was thinking, dealing with a dragon. A dragon!

She managed to pull Albus aside when everyone else left for their morning classes—something she had the luxury of avoiding—and he could tell immediately where her concerns were.

"I have a theory," he said. "Unsubstantiated, of course."

"Naturally," she said, itching to check on Ron Weasley for herself and get the full, non-theoretical story.

"We have one…member of staff who is…fond of dragons."

Lydia rolled her eyes. Hagrid.

"We also have a former student who can…house dragons safely."

Charlie, she thought, realizing now how both Ron Weasley and Harry Potter could have been dragged into this mess. It was simple enough to fill in the rest, from how Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom ended up pulled in, to why Draco was so intent to get others in trouble for it: all his least favorite people removed from Hogwarts at once! He really was like his father in so many ways.

At least it wasn't as big as she'd previously feared. At least it was one simple folly of Hagrid's rather than an illegal smuggling ring in the school.

"I will keep a closer eye on Hagrid's behaviors and reading habits in future," Albus promised, "but I think no permanent harm was done."

"Tell that to Harry's social life," Lydia said with a wince.

"I daresay they will each have their opportunities to earn those points back, in big and small ways. Fifty points apiece is not so impossible a thing."

Lydia disagreed. There wasn't much left in the year to earn points back in, and what with how much Severus took off Harry every time he had class, even Hermione Granger couldn't make up on her own the colossal amount of points the three of them had lost. And poor Neville hadn't earned a point for anything all year.

"The situation is not ideal," Albus conceded. "But you needn't worry."

Lydia almost never believed him anymore when he said this. She thanked him and pretended like she was going to her office. Instead, she took a detour to the hospital wing, where Ron Weasley sat, miserable, staring at his stack of homework woefully. Had news reached him about the successful offloading of the dragon? Of the massive loss of points?

"Professor," he said, sitting up straighter, his bandaged arm indeed quite swollen. "Madam Pomfrey is out—"

"I'm aware," Lydia said. She locked the door to the infirmary, glad they were alone. She sat beside his cot, ignoring his spluttering as she unbandaged the wound.

She could see what Poppy meant. It looked almost gangrenous, and even among dragons, only a handful of types would have the right type of venom for this type of wound. She examined the puncture.

"Ridgeback?" she asked.

Ron winced, but he said nothing. She went into Poppy's stores, grabbed a couple of salves and a paste, and came back out to his cot.

"I won't say anything to Madam Pomfrey," Lydia said, smoothing the paste over the punctures, "about the dragon if you don't say anything to her about my doing her job."

"Yes, professor," Ron said, obviously not interested in how she knew about the dragon. He whimpered as she flexed his wrist and felt for his bones.

The healing process was longer than she would have liked, but the swelling had already gone down a bit when she went to re-bandage, he had a bit of color back at his fingertips, and Ron confirmed that it didn't ache.

"The ache will return," she warned him. "I can't promise I'll be able to sneak back in after dinner to give you another dose of the salve, but if I don't, just take deep breaths and think about something else as best you can. It should be gone by lunch tomorrow, at any rate."

"Professor?" Ron said when Lydia was about to go, after putting back the supplies. She nodded. "I—thank you."

She smiled, unlocked the door, and said, "Tell Charlie I said hello, won't you?"

The mood in her courses that day was mixed. Her Gryffindors were miserable, her Slytherins were sour, and everyone else was just trying not to be too cheerful in case they offended someone. Even Lydia, who typically tried to exude as much cheer as she could, reined in her usual excitement and tried to be subdued, not wanting to push anyone to some retaliation. It didn't usually take much between Slytherin and Gryffindor to start fights in the corridors.

Percy Weasley was especially morose, and he took quite some time packing up his things on the way to his next class. Lydia cleared her throat and said, "Just because you're a prefect, Percy, doesn't mean it's your fault."

"The fifth year prefects are responsible for the first year students, Professor Rowe," Percy said.

"I am aware."

"So any lapse in first year behavior to this degree is surely a failing on my part."

Lydia's lips twitched. She wondered what the Marauders' behavior reflected for Frank Longbottom's part, poor soul.

"Percy, that's just impractical," she said. "For one, you have another prefect, and she is half responsible for your duties. For another, you're not responsible for everything the first year students do, just responsible for making certain they know what to do and where to go. Even if you were responsible for them somehow beyond that, no one would hold you ultimately responsible for the choices they make. There are dozens of first year students, and all of them make their own decisions through their own processes."

Percy made a half-hearted acknowledgment of her point, but she knew she wasn't getting through to him. Lydia wondered if anything would ever get through to Percy Weasley.

"I suppose the one thing I can be proud of," he said, "is that my brother was not drawn into this mess."

Lydia made a non-committal noise, wishing she didn't know that Ron was indeed very much drawn in, and that this was why he was sitting in the hospital wing.

"I suppose the twins lose enough points for your family without adding in anyone else," she said. At least Ron hadn't lost points, she thought. At least she could pretend she didn't know the rest.

Percy made a bit of a sour face, thanked her again, and left Lydia on her own.

She stared out the window for a bit, trying to decide if she had any obligation to tell Albus about the dragon. It was long gone by now, probably safely in Romania. And she wouldn't be willing to bet that Albus didn't already know about the dragon, as he seemed to know everything else.

As she stared at the grounds, her mind wandered. First she thought of her own friends, and she wondered which of them would have been pulled into such a mess. All the boys, she supposed, even Remus. Artemis, certainly. Mary might have, if she could have stayed on the fringes. And Lily wouldn't have been foolish enough to be involved for her own efforts, but if she thought one of her friends were in trouble, she might pitch in. Lydia's chest ached, and she thought of how marvelous Sirius would have found such a puzzle, a little adventure. She imagined him at eleven, designing some contraption to transport a dragon.

But imagining Sirius at eleven led to so many more thoughts and memories. She thought of him in school, goading her half the time and protecting her the other half. She thought of how it felt to have his hands on her, the way she felt when he held her at night. Even if it never felt right, it had always felt safe. She shivered.

She was surprised when Minerva visited her toward the end of the day, just when Lydia was finishing her last stack of grading. Minerva looked exhausted, and little wonder. She must have been up very late dealing with the mess from the dragon.

"I hope you're not giving them too awful of a detention," Lydia said with a tight smile.

"They'll do something for Hagrid," Minerva said with a sniff. "I would have given them something more structured, but I expect the points loss is enough for most of them, and Mr. Malfoy is disgusted by most types of detention, so he will suffer regardless."

Lydia rubbed her eyes and nodded. She wished she could tell Minerva what had really happened, that they were just trying to fix a problem, but there was no way to do it without risking making things worse, so Lydia said nothing.

After a long pause, Minerva said, "Forgive me, Lydia, but I wanted to ask you about something you almost certainly do not wish to discuss."

"Go on," Lydia said, curious. There were many things she didn't want to discuss.

"It has come to my attention that Albus is petitioning to visit Azkaban prison."

Lydia's stomach dropped. She made a non-committal sound, and Minerva sat across from her at the desk, but Lydia didn't look up, didn't meet her once-teacher, now-colleague's eyes. Finally, Minerva made a tutting sound.

"Well, he hasn't said anything, and I haven't seen the paperwork, but I have a hunch that he is going to try to talk to Sirius Black, given some of the other research he's done lately. I suppose he told you about it?"

"He may have mentioned it."

Lydia could have hit herself. There was no "may have" about it, if Albus had mentioned it, that was hardly a thing Lydia could be believed to have forgotten.

Minerva cleared her throat, then said, "My dear…are you not going with him?"

"No."

She wasn't sure if she felt disappointed or relieved. It changed so often, and she very regularly didn't know which. Minerva didn't seem to know which she should feel, either, and she finally sniffed.

"Well, perhaps it is better. I really couldn't say. But I do wonder…have you ever decided how you feel about…everything that happened?"

Lydia couldn't hold in the single bitter burst of laughter, and Minerva looked at her with something akin to pity. What to even say to that? How did one ever decide how to feel without all the facts?

"Yes and no."

She wanted to leave the matter there, but Minerva finally cleared her throat.

"If there is one thing I learned in the war," she said, "it is that things are often quite complicated, and that one way to combat those complications is by vocalizing them. I know it would be…difficult to talk about some of these things with Severus. Particularly Sirius. And Perhaps Remus was…too close to the problem. So if there is anything I can do, even if it is just an ear…you do know you can talk to me?"

Lydia sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"It should be simple, shouldn't it?" she said. "I should hate him, and that should be that."

"Few things are ever so simple with people we share history with, Lydia," Minerva said, frowning. "After all, many would argue during the war that you should have hated Severus for his choices, and that would have been that, but obviously you saw something beyond that. Many others would say you should hate Remus for what he is, but you see past that. There is nothing wrong with how you feel about Sirius Black being…complicated. Despite his…difficulties, he was one of my favorite students. It doesn't excuse what he did, what his choices were, but I do at times recall his…antics with fondness."

Lydia found this declaration perhaps the most startling of all, and she was torn between a desire to know what on earth Minerva had been fond of and her absolute lack of desire to reminisce about sweet, innocent Sirius of the school years.

"What would you say?" Minerva said. "If Sirius Black sat in front of you today, what would you say to him?"

She didn't know. Lydia thought of all the things she should say, about how angry she was, about how he betrayed them, betrayed her, used her, even. She thought of all the questions that had plagued her since that morning when Albus brought her the news, never with a satisfying answer. She thought of telling him that she'd never loved him, just to see if it had any effect on him at all. She wasn't sure if she was more afraid of it hurting him or meaning nothing to him. Lydia rubbed her temples.

"I don't know," she said. Her voice was so soft, she wasn't even sure that Minerva heard it, so she cleared her throat and continued a bit louder. "Do you…do you remember the fight he got into with Mulciber after Mary was…hurt?" Minerva inclined her head. Lydia closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. "I thought he'd kill him, you know. I really did. And sometimes I wonder if that was for show or if it was…real. I don't know where the line between real and a lie is with him."

"You may never be sure. But it is reasonable to be curious, Lydia. That was so much of your life for so long." She snorted. "It would be like me learning Albus was secretly a pureblood supremacist. Everything I know about one of the people I am closest to in the world would start to feel like a lie, or at least a very elaborately weaved deception."

"Aren't those the same?"

Minerva's smile was tight when Lydia opened her eyes again.

"Similar, perhaps," Minerva whispered. "But those nuances, Lydia, they do matter. There is nothing wrong with wondering. I don't know that Albus will be able to find your answers for you, whatever he is looking for, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask."

Lydia thanked her, although she wasn't sure she meant the words. She watched Minerva leave the room and felt a weight settle in her chest. Narcissa tells her it doesn't make a difference, the question. Minerva tells her the questions matter. Severus would rather she forgot about the whole mess, and Remus seemed to want her to bury the past unless it was convenient for him to remember. And Albus…Albus wanted to dig open all the old wounds, but he didn't seem to care as much about how she was meant to heal them. And she didn't have the faintest clue of what she wanted, or what she needed, or anything of the sort. She rubbed her eyes and tried to ignore the stinging on her waterline.

Dinner was somber, or it felt somber to Lydia. She moved through the space, the routines of the meal without full awareness or feeling. She ate her food without tasting, she held conversation without listening, and she watched students without caring. Lydia had a strong sense that there was some important, essential question she had to answer, something where if she knew the answer to that one thing, the other questions would either fall into place or become totally unimportant. Just one question, and if she had an answer, she could lay the whole matter to rest. But Lydia wasn't sure what the question was, or if she had any right to ask, or even who would have the answer apart form Sirius. And could she trust him to answer anything? Again, she couldn't be sure. She half-believed still that he'd never lied to her, but she knew he must have. Even in small things, even if he'd really done it all to protect her, which was a narrative she both detested and needed in equal measure.

When she went to bed that night, Severus seemed to see that something was off with her, but he didn't press. He just gave her the dose of her medicine and let her sink into bed beside him. She felt his arms wrap around her, hugging her close, but even as she closed her eyes, even as she gave in to sleep, her head was spinning with questions that weren't quite the right one.

A/N: So Lydia learns of the great dragon incident, she tries to mop up the damage without making things worse, and Minerva tries to press Lydia into healing some of her past. I had some fun with Lydia stepping back into the Healer role. That's been a hot second, right? Right now, I'm about to start drafting the chapter where Ron gets his Howler. That's going to be fun!

Review Prompt: If you were Lydia right now, and you only knew what she knows, and you got the option to ask Sirius ONE question from where he sits in Azkaban, what would you pick, and how do you think he'd answer?

-C