Chapter 30: It's always for family

I don't own 'Harry Potter'


"Should I be concerned that you've already starting escaping from school? You haven't even been back a month yet."

Rose turned her head to the side without bothering to sit up, her loose hair spilling over the side of the sofa and onto the thick cream carpet. Laying down in a careless sprawl that would have had her Black ancestors screaming obscenities at her wasn't the most productive way to spend her day, but she honestly couldn't give a fuck right now. At all.

She knew she was feeling more listless than usual, but she was tired. And cranky. Motivation was hard to come by as it was sometimes, but right now Rose couldn't muster up the energy to do what she was told. What was the point in politics?

Sirius had pushed his paperwork to the side with barely-hidden relief, though she could see the obvious concern in his eyes as he looked over at her. Her dad was going to be an amazing parent to his new child.

"School's boring, and Aunt Cassi's driving me fucking insane. All she bloody goes on about is alliances, and the importance of behaving like a respectable Lady, and representing my Houses …

"I can't be bothered anymore."

The room was silent after her bitter muttering and Rose closed her eyes, taking deep breaths before she starting spitting curses and stalking off to throw deadly hexes around for some old-fashioned stress relief. Her temper had gotten even worse over the past month, which in turn made her angrier, and the cycle was irritating to deal with, and people needed to just fuck off right now.

Oh, how she missed being a miserable recluse.

"Rose. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

The gentle tone absurdly made her scrunch her face up angrily, and she despaired once more. What was wrong with her?

"I don't know," she huffed.

Her dad made a questioning sound and Rose sighed, opening her eyes as she sat up. She ran one hand through her curls roughly, messing them so thoroughly that Cassiopeia would have had a fit had she seen. That thought made her do it even more, vindictively satisfied at simply being a young girl instead of the Lady that she was supposed to act as. It was freeing.

"I just … I feel like shit. My mood, my temper, they're all over the fucking place! I can't be fucked to do jack shit, and don't get me started on those bloody betrothal contracts that have started coming my way," she vented with a grimace on her face. No fucking way am I going to sign away my own bloody womb before I can even wear a bra. What are these dipshits thinking?

Her dad snorted, silver eyes glittering darkly at the mention of contracts. "Well, they'll have to turn their attention elsewhere, won't they? As if I'm going to agree to any of that crap. Fucking idiots."

Rose mentally agreed even as her lips twitched into a grin. The beauty of her position was that nobody else had the means to force her hand into marriage, even the man sat before her. (Not that he ever would; even now her jokes about getting married tended to send him into hysterical panic. It was a great pick-me-up for her.) She was Lady Potter, and as such she bowed to nobody from her birth family on these matters. Even if she had wanted to accept a betrothal on her own terms, Sirius would have to agree because of her being a member of House Black under his purview. For once, the uptight traditions of pure-bloods would serve to help her instead of hinder. Would miracles never cease?

Her father stood up and walked around his desk, dropping down next to her with a careless grace that Rose was viciously envious of. (No wonder he'd had a legion of hormonal fans in school.) The man wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead before squeezing her in a hug.

"Can I ask you something?"

Rose made an enquiring nose as she looked up into his serious face – pun definitely not intended; it was the ultimate awful dad joke, and there were only so many times she could cringe before she smothered him with a cushion – his mouth pulled into a flat line with a small crease between his elegant brows. (It was a far cry from the man who'd gotten absolutely plastered at Andi's during Christmas and tried to jump off the roof Mary Poppins-style. She would treasure that memory forever.)

Sirius cleared his throat and stared at her with a look of concern. "Why do you do it? Listen to Cassiopeia so much, I mean? From your own words, you were a highly-successful witch of thirty before you came back. A Ministry employee, a war hero – even if you shouldn't have had to be in that position to begin with – and massively independent. By the sounds of it, you never gave a crap what anyone thought of you, yet now you do pretty much everything she tells you.

"Why haven't you walked away yet?"

Rose snorted before she could stop herself, feeling the familiar disgust erupt from within her whenever she thought on this very topic. Those people who think time travel would be an amazing opportunity are such dumbasses.

She turned back to her dad and smiled sardonically. "I am a child, you know." Her smile dropped from her face and Rose scoffed as she shifted sideways on the sofa. "I'm a fucking child," she bit out viciously. "I've gone from someone who would have likely soon been running The Department of Mysteries to a school student of twelve. A little girl in the eyes of our society. A little girl who's a Lady and an exceptional student, but still a little girl.

"That's what everyone sees me as."

Her dad grabbed both her hands and squeezed tightly. "Not everyone. You're a brilliant woman, Rose."

"But I can't be a woman to everyone!" She pulled away and stood up, pacing backwards and forwards, spinning in circles as her feet mirrored her current thoughts. Rose hated feeling so disorganised, but given her mood lately, Occlumency would be more of a hindrance than a help. (Ending up in the hospital after a mental breakdown wasn't really something she wanted, to be perfectly honest.)

"Nobody gets it, Dad. I might have joked about it before, but my old workplace really doesn't take well to their secrets getting out." Blue eyes met silver with solemnity. "You and I both know that the more people who know a secret, the quicker it's going to come out, whether we want it to or not.

"Time travel is a closely-guarded secret within the department as it is, but the vast majority of our world still recognise Time-Turners, still vaguely understand how they're used. Because they can and do have applications outside of the Ministry, it's not as necessary to keep their existence under wraps," Rose explained quietly.

"However, there are still many more things that are being researched within the bowels of the Ministry. Things that nobody knows about. Things that nobody can know about. The Department of Mysteries is vicious in keeping the 'Mysteries' part of their title so relevant. They deal in rather esoteric knowledge that has to stay there, no matter what.

"If you think the Aurors have strict secrecy contracts, you've clearly never encountered a workplace with different intersecting secrecy vows embedded in your very soul."

The man blanched and paled, looking ill at the very thought. "Your soul?" A panicked look entered his eyes a second later. "Wait, does that mean that you've still –"

"Yes, they're still active. It was basically my soul that ended up back here – sort of, I'm still not entirely sure of the particulars; Soul Magic isn't something I've ever wanted to involve myself with – so I'm still bound to keep my silence on their secrets. I can still technically perform any spells learned there, but I can't in any way convey any of the secret magics to any person not already in the know." Rose was honestly impressed that ending up in another time period wasn't enough to nullify the chains bounding her to secrecy. It was incredible magic when she thought about it.

"No workplace has ever been perfect, you know. My department has had some truly terrible people working there in the past, and some of the work doesn't even begin to describe the word 'unethical'. I hate to say it, but experimentation involving human life – any form of life, really – is rather par for the course down there," she revealed with a grimace, not even needing to meet her father's eyes to know there would be disgust swimming in them.

"If secrets get out, then the members of the department set out to drag the knowledge back down, whether it's attached to anyone or not. Essentially imprisoning someone who's had the misfortune of crossing The Department of Mysteries has happened before, because my former workplace' attitude resonates very well with the 'self-preservation' aspect of Slytherin."

Rose sighed and stopped pacing, staring at the carpet resolutely as her mind wandered into horrific scenarios. "As I said, time travel is a known phenomenon. Known well, largely because it's happened often enough since the creation of the Ministry to have a very large database of information to draw accurate conclusions from," she admitted quietly, lips twitching at the surprise in Sirius' eyes. She supposed that she'd been the same back when she'd started her career; finding out that people jumping through time wasn't exactly a rare occurrence was rather baffling to discover.

"However," she stressed with a stern look across the room, "that doesn't mean that my old colleagues don't often fuck up when it comes to their morality and ethics. Any time traveller not versed in Ministry politics has often thought that contacting The Department of Mysteries would be a good plan. The best place to figure out what's happened to them, and how to get back – if it's even possible.

"The issue is that of course the Unspeakables are best equipped for these issues, if they don't get it into their heads to 'study' the effects of time travel of their newest clients. Those clients aren't usually around for much longer after that," Rose finished tiredly. Sometimes I really hate people.

The Department of Mysteries had been a right shit show ever since bloody Grindelwald, and it had taken decades until it could be deemed as anything close to respectable. The German wizard's quest for the Hallows hadn't been as quiet as he'd thought, and the Ministry back then had been in a state of 'the end justifies the means'. A war between magicals, a war between muggles, massive shifts in the political arena … What did it matter if a few Unspeakables had to get their hands dirty if everything turned out okay in the end?

Spoiler alert: it fucking mattered.

The Unspeakables hadn't been able to do jack shit about Grindelwald, and it had been thanks to Dumbledore that the Dark Lord finally ended his reign of tyranny. (As much as the Headmaster had hurt her, Rose couldn't help but feel horrified sympathy for a young Albus Dumbledore. Having to take down somebody that you truly loved must be a terrible experience. She prayed that she'd never have to tear herself apart like that.)

Of course, that hadn't stopped the investigation into just what Grindelwald had been getting up to in his spare time. Which, considering the man had been a genius to rival his lover, was a lot. Rose had seen the reports, pages and pages detailing antiquated research of rituals and forgotten magics, memory manipulation and blood pacts. Pages and pages which had been used to propel the Unspeakables into even more decades of dubious experiments which had done nothing to foster good relations with the rest of the Ministry, culminating in the department having the worst reputation of them all.

By the time of Voldemort's war, the department had been a place for moles and ostriches alike. It was disgusting, really. One half of the employees had been ferreting out secrets for a group of psychotic terrorists, and the other had been content to pretend that innocents weren't being murdered left, right and centre.

What a prestigious place to work.

It was only after Kingsley became Minister and cleaned house thoroughly that the corruption had been weeded out, punishments given to those deserving with no discrimination. When Rose had worked there as an adult, things had been a lot better in terms of ethics, but their past would always hover about like a black cloud. Most of their current knowledge had come from terrible darkness, and it was this darkness that she'd been bound to protect first and foremost. She honestly couldn't tell whether she chafed at the restrictions despite her current age, or if she was glad that she'd never have to burden anybody else with that knowledge. Perhaps it was both.

Rose forcibly tore herself away from that mental rabbit hole – nothing good would come from going there – and focused on her dad's conflicted expression, nearly laughing at the sight. She knew all too well that trying to find a resolution to misguided ethics was largely an exercise in futility. (Yet another depressing realisation that she'd come to early in her last life.)

"Anyway, that would be the main reason. It might look like I'm doing a permanent impression of a dog following their owner's commands, but it is rather needed." Rose frowned harshly at the thought. "What would everyone else do – what would Cassiopeia Black do, if a mere child of twelve told everybody else to go fuck themselves while she did whatever she wanted?

"You know I want to make my families proud this time, Dad," she murmured softly. It certainly hadn't happened last time around. "I want to be taken seriously, and that means I have to act a certain way. Even more importantly is that I don't want anyone else to find out the truth about me. It's dangerous, even with other family. Aunt Cassi's the sort of person to always have her own agenda, and she definitely has her own ideas about things. God only knows what she'd do with my future knowledge," Rose muttered under her breath. Her aunt was the epitome of 'wild card'.

She cleared her throat and looked Sirius in the eye. "I need to be able to largely fly under the radar until I finish school, then people can't do anything about my behaviour. As it is, I'm in the public eye right now. For now, I'll jump when my seniors tell me to, but it won't be forever.

"I'll do whatever I have to do to protect my family."

The room was silent after her little rant and Rose took a moment to take a few deep breaths. She felt a bit more centred than before, less irritated, that was for sure. Maybe she should ask her dads to be her therapists for the foreseeable future?

She came back to reality as her father leaned forward and took her hands in his, squeezing slightly. He was warm, and grounding, and just there for her in a way that she'd always wanted before, and Rose surrendered to the gentle pull, allowing herself to be enveloped in his strong arms. He still smelled faintly of whisky and Rose smiled despite herself. It wasn't the best habit to have, but it was so uniquely 'Sirius Black' that she loved it.

"And yet once more am I reminded of how much we all screwed your life over." He sounded so mournful, but before Rose could argue the point – which she damn well would do; her parents had done so much for her – the man carried on in his unusually-solemn voice.

"I'm so proud of you doing so much for our family, but if you really don't want to keep following Cassiopeia, I'll do something about it. I only want you to be happy, you know."

Rose buried deeper into his shirt and closed her eyes. "Thanks, Dad. But how exactly would you do about getting rid of such a dangerous witch, anyway?"

He shrugged casually. "Tell her to piss off?"

Rose snorted and laughed, hugging the man back as he pulled her onto his lap.

Her family was worth everything to her.


"Cassiopeia … "

"Don't."

"Avoidance isn't going to help your case here."

"I think you'll find that I'm well aware of the particulars of this situation."

"Aunt Cassi!"

"Enough, Andromeda."

The blonde woman turned away from her niece and set about fixing her silk scarf around her neck, ensuring that she looked exactly as put together as she had before she'd walked into the room. Those identical silver eyes behind her held far too emotion as it was, and she couldn't be arsed to deal with anymore drama today.

Bloody family. Can't have a peaceful life with them, have too many enemies without them. Long live the fucking House of Black. Maybe I should have said yes when Lu asked me to run away together. It would have been simpler.

"I'm not pleading with you just as family, Cassiopeia, I'm still a professional."

She huffed quietly to herself. "I'm well aware, Andromeda. It's also why I'm well aware that there's no point in discussing this. An exercise in futility wasn't on my list of tasks for today."

"I'm not entirely certain that it's completely futile, there might be –"

The older witch spun on the spot and fixed her niece with a piercing glare, silencing her immediately. It was immensely satisfying. "Don't fool yourself, Andromeda. You say that you're a professional, but you appear to be nothing more than a child grasping at straws right now. The both of us know too well that there is nothing to be done here. No possibilities whatsoever. I accepted this long ago. Can you?"

She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. "Admit it to me. Stand there and admit the truth, Andromeda, because I think you really need to admit to it yourself as well. Be an adult and tell the truth, Healer Tonks."

The brunette scowled at her, her eyes flickering just like her older sister's always had when annoyed at being underestimated. (Yet another case of regret for Cassiopeia. Bellatrix had been so promising as a child. How had that enigmatic child turned out so wrong? Yet another symptom of the disease infecting their House in the past.)

Andromeda swallowed a couple of times, the anger in those silver eyes at war with the visible pain, and Cassiopeia smiled sardonically. How times have changed.

"Fine, you want me to tell the truth, Madam Black? Want me to admit the truth? I have already, in case you hadn't noticed, but if you want to be told yet again, then by all means.

"You're dying."

"Thanks for the reminder," Cassiopeia replied dryly. It was astonishing what she found amusing in her old age, she thought.

Her niece flushed with anger. "This isn't funny, Aunt Cassi! If you're lucky – and that's a bloody big 'if' – then you've only got another year left. I can't stop it from spreading anymore – more potions will only make you sick in other ways – and using certain magics will make it spread quicker! There's – there's nothing I can do …"

Cassiopeia watched the younger woman trail off miserably and nearly rolled her eyes. Motherhood had really done a number on Andromeda's emotional control. Then again, not many of her relatives had ever been able to keep themselves together in private. She only had to remember Pollux's temper in their childhood home for evidence of that.

"If there's nothing to be done, then there's nothing, end of discussion. Drowning yourself in misery isn't going to stop me from dying, Andromeda. Perhaps you should use this as a learning experience? Use the healing techniques from my situation to write an article or something," she mused casually. It's something she would have done if she were a Healer. "Put it out of your mind and move on. There's not –"

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" her niece interrupted furiously, her magic filling the room like a suffocating cloud. (Cassiopeia couldn't help but admire the magical strength. And preen inwardly, because she was the one who'd taught Andromeda that trick when she was just a girl.)

"Is that all you're going to say?! 'End of discussion'? 'Write an article'? 'Put it out of your mind'?! Do you really think this situation is that simple?" Andromeda hissed at her, silver eyes glowing with the darker Black magic. (A true witch of House Black. Pollux would be so proud of his granddaughter.)

"What do you want me to say here, Andromeda?" Cassiopeia shot back, cutting off the younger woman before she could start screaming at her. "Do you want me to start sobbing? Sit down and drown myself in what-ifs? Start reminiscing about my younger years with a melancholic heart? My past is the past, end of story, and my future might contain death rather soon, but I'm still in the present, Andromeda. The present is where I am, and the present is where all of my plans and ideas are.

"There is, quite literally, no point in falling over myself to mourn my future self when I still have far too much to do at the current time."

The brunette faced her silently, her anger still simmering but slowly being forced down by the obvious confusion. "Why? Why can't you just – just take a moment? Go somewhere and process things? I've just told you that I can no longer extend your life. Surely you need a moment to think that through?"

Cassiopeia snorted inelegantly. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I am a rather smart woman, Andromeda. I came to you already aware that any measures you took wouldn't last forever. I knew that you wouldn't be able to cure me or keep me alive for that long. All I needed was a bit more time than I had before, and you delivered perfectly."

"But why?" was the quiet response. "What did you need more time for?"

The blonde woman sighed tiredly – what a loaded question – and moved to sit down opposite her niece's desk. Andromeda took the seat behind the desk and faced her seriously, eyes boring into hers with a curiosity that made Cassiopeia question how the other woman had avoided Ravenclaw. (Then again, the possibility of familial retribution had always been a strong motivator.)

"Let me ask you a question, Niece. Two years ago, around this time of year, what was the state of the family?"

Andromeda blinked at her. "Lord Black had just died, Sirius was still in Azkaban, mine and Marius' families were still disinherited, and the kids were … Well, shitty situations all around, really. Draco and Rose have come a long way, that's for sure."

Cassiopeia smiled thinly. "Arcturus was dead, and there was no clear Heir. We all know that Lucius Malfoy would have eventually pushed for Draco to be Heir Black – perhaps even Lord Black. Lucius always went for more than he could handle," she muttered irritably.

"The family had been going up in flames, with nobody around to put the fire out. Our family, our House, a staple of British magic for well over a millennia – nearly gone. Even now there are less than ten people who bear the Black name and our magic. We're pitiful compared to what we were a century ago.

"I wasn't going to let that happen."

She thought back to the moment she realised that she'd have to do something. Opening the paper only to realise that your own nephew had spent a decade inside the country's worst prison completely innocent, having been sent there without any semblance of a trial, had been more than enough to light a fire under her indignation.

The House of Black had brought her a lot of pain over the years, but for all of its fuck-ups – of which there were many – it was her family. The Blacks were hers, for better or for worse, and nobody was allowed to ruin them, not even themselves.

Realising that the pitiful remnants of her birth House had a definitive future had been a phenomenal moment in recent history. Sirius might still be a pain, but he'd grown intellectually enough to accept that he now had responsibilities, as well as how to deal with them. Andromeda was just as determined now as she had been as a child, and Narcissa had been a delightful surprise. Managing to silently flourish under the stifling control of the Malfoys had been astounding to discover. And Rose …

Rose Potter was a glorious find.

The newest blonde witch of House Black – for all that she was Lady Potter, she would always be a Black – was fascinating to Cassiopeia. The girl was brilliant, intellectually as well as in terms of common sense, and had the confidence to use her smarts when she needed them. She was sly in all the ways that she needed to be, albeit balanced with equal instances of horrifying bluntness and vulgarity. (A part of Cassiopeia cackled at the chaos whenever it occurred. The other part just gave a horrified lecture to her wilful niece.)

Rose was a perfect future for House Black, and Cassiopeia had been determined to cultivate the girl into one of the most desirable witches of her generation. Make her a perfect lady of Houses Black and Potter, help her achieve her hopes and dreams.

Cassiopeia had seen in Rose what she herself had been as a child. Stubborn, foul-mouthed, powerful, independent, a personal moral compass, and a subtly manipulative mind that was fun. The older witch had been all those things and more as a young girl, and she'd been proud of it, proud of her individuality.

Of course, nothing ever lasts.

She'd been shut down, forced into the role of a quiet, prim and proper witch that was perfect for nothing but a marriage contract. She hadn't been the Heiress – wasn't even the main branch – so she hadn't been able to do as she'd wanted. Lord Black, her aunts and uncles, her parents, her older brother … all of them had slowly made her smaller and smaller until she'd been a silent and proper ball of destructive fury just waiting for an opportunity to explode.

Three cheers for proper child-rearing.

Imagining young Rose being restrained into a one-dimensional archetype was revolting to imagine, and Cassiopeia would never do that, despite how it might currently look to others. She didn't want to change her niece, she only wanted to reinforce her education and manners. Give her the skills to move in whatever circles she decided to traverse without acquiring a whole host of enemies. The woman wanted Rose to be able to grow as a happy woman, with friends and allies that she could trust, with the appropriate knowledge in order to climb as high as she could on the social ladder of their community. Whatever the younger witch did after that was up to her, but Cassiopeia would be damned if she left her newest protégé vulnerable before she inevitably kicked the bucket.

Rose was a ray of sunshine for the darkness that had been pervading their family for decades, even if the clichéd metaphor made her want to vomit. The girl had injected some levity that had gone a long way towards fostering true bonds of family within their House, and it was an inspiring sight to behold. Yes, Rose was rather more progressive and liberal that Cassiopeia herself was, but she wasn't so caught within the confines of tradition that she couldn't accept that change would probably be a good thing.

It was frankly bizarre, she mused, that Rose was probably the person that she'd miss the most when she died. It was admittedly … warming, that she and Marius had reconciled after all this time, and getting to become embroiled in their family madness was rather energising in its own way, but Rose was … special. Relatable, certainly, but also charming in her own way. (And if there was a part of her that wondered if this was what it would have been like to have her own daughter, well … That was between her and her own mind.)

Either way, there was a reason that she'd held back from becoming too close and personal to her niece. Cassiopeia wasn't needlessly cruel – to undeserving people – so she'd long since realised that cultivating a warmer relationship between her and Rose was far too terrible an idea. Rose would likely be too far affected by her grief, as the girl was definitely the sort to get extraordinarily attached to those she considered family. She wasn't going to give the poor girl hope for another familial relationship only to suddenly die on her. Her niece had already lost both her birth parents and gone an entire decade without Sirius; any more loss would likely scar her irreparably.

If holding herself back would make things easier on Rose, then she was all for it.

"Andromeda," she started again quietly, meeting Andromeda's stormy eyes with her own, "acceptance isn't my issue. My issue is that I need to ensure my plans don't fall apart after I've gone, as well as ensure that everyone is protected as much as I'm able to affect right now. I need to go and start putting my affairs into order, and I would appreciate your silence on the matter. I have far too much to do without worrying about the potential hysterics from our relatives.

"I'll do whatever I have to do to protect my family."

The brunette held her gaze for a few seconds before sighing heavily, turning to look at one of the newest photos on the wall. It was from Christmas, with young Nymphadora and Rose wrestling a cheap Santa hat onto poor Draco's head, the boy valiantly trying – and ultimately failing – to escape his cousins with a furious scowl on his face. It was admittedly adorable to look at. And hilarious, because Cassiopeia's nieces were evil, sneaky little shits when they wanted to be.

"I won't say anything." Well, that's one obstacle gone. "Your life is yours to decide, and I won't interfere with that. However," she added with a stony glare, "if it gets too close to the end and you haven't warned anyone, I will start hounding you like I did when I was a teenager and I wanted to learn Warding."

Cassiopeia raised a brow, an amused smile on her lips. "Oh? You mean when your father flat-out forbade you from learning because he considered a possible career for you entirely pointless as he planned for you to soon be married?"

"Yes."

"Well, consider me warned," the blonde quipped. She sobered a minute later. "I'm not neglecting to prepare anyone, Andromeda, I just don't think there's any point in letting everyone wallow in misery. It's best to do things quicker. Trust me."

Andromeda nodded slowly. "I will, don't doubt it, but I will speak up if I see evidence to the contrary."

The older witch turned to stare out of the window. "That's all I can ask for."

And that's that. She thought that she should probably start with her personal contacts on the continent before moving onto her Hogwarts contract. Not to mention her will, but she already had an idea of who was going to get what. It certainly wasn't difficult to decide.

Maybe she should get started on a long-term syllabus for Rose's education in magical society. She was sure that Narcissa could enforce its continuation through until her younger niece graduated, and if not, ensure that Rose understood its importance.

So much to do and so little time. If only time travel was a possibility.

Cassiopeia shook off that thought and looked down at her Black ring, studying the warm metals with a barely-visible smile on her face.

She wasn't lying when she said she'd do anything to protect her family.


A/N: Hello again!

So ... welcome to Cassiopeia's mind! And yeah, this is who Luna meant earlier. I wonder if anyone can figure out what's going to happen from here on out? (I am NOT going to answer this question btw, I'm just curious what people will guess. I'm bored, sorry lol)

I'm also laughing because I've had people saying that Rose is completely different to how she was in the past story, and how she's just doing as she's told. I was always planning to address this anyway, hence why I couldn't be bothered to get into it earlier. I hope this sort of makes sense, because Rose is hella cautious when she has reason to be. There may also be another reason, but give it a few more chapters.

In terms of this part of the story, I'm planning for about five more chapters until I take a break for third year, so just a heads up. It's funny actually, because I originally planned for this part to be shorter than the first part, but then again my imagination always runs away with itself. Oh well.

See ya next time!