Author's Note: Welcome back to chapter 8 already of the third book! I hope you're all having a nice week. I particularly want to thank my lovely lovely reviewers Ghostwriter71, LeahLovesPotter, and TheMushroomGuild for making me happy. It's great to know that there are people who enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it. This one is for you! :)

August 10, 1996
London

When they had been safely seated in the kitchen, both nursing a cup of tea and professor Dumbledore an additional glass of brandy, Sophie had started to talk. For this meeting, Sophie had perused her old notes once more, determining what was most vital for the headmaster to know. She'd told him of the Deathly Hallows and the Elder Wand in particular – which he already had in his possession. With some reluctance, she had also told him of the events that had been supposed to happen but were now uncertain – if not impossible – regarding Draco's role in Voldemort's acquiring of the wand, if not its loyalty. Finally, when the fire in the kitchen hearth had long died down to a mere smouldering and midnight had long come and gone, she had told him of Harry, and of how he was supposed to die.

By the time professor Dumbledore Disapparated out of Grimmauld Place 12, they were both physically and mentally exhausted, and Sophie had not even bothered to change out of her day clothes as she'd dropped on her bed. And fallen fast asleep.

-xxx-

The next morning, she woke up late to an empty room. For a moment enjoying the calm and quiet – with her eyes closed almost allowing herself to be deceived in thinking she was home in her own bed – Sophie at last forced her eyes open and her body in a vertical position. A little sluggishly, she selected a washed jean and a Nirvana band shirt from her duffle bag, and made her way to the bathroom with a pair of fresh underwear and her toiletries.

Fifteen minutes later she trudged into the kitchen, seating herself in the same seat that she had occupied the previous evening in her conversation with Dumbledore. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Draco were already there, the former four talking amongst themselves until her arrival, when they fell suspiciously silent. Neither Mrs Weasley nor Mrs Malfoy were in sight – though given the time, this was not so strange.

'We didn't hear you come in last night,' Ginny said, just as Sophie reached for a slice of toast from the basket in the middle of the table. Even in her still sleep-muddled brain, the suspicious tone was unmistakable.

Sophie shrugged, grabbing the marmalade closest to her – blueberry, definitely not her favourite – without looking up, 'I tried to be quiet.'

'What did Dumbledore want to talk to you about?'

She glared up, finding it was the Boy-Who-Lived himself who had entered the conversation – of course it was – and biting her tongue to keep herself from telling Harry James Potter where to stuff it. Instead she took a deep breathe, releasing the death grip she suddenly found herself holding her knife in, 'I wanted to talk to him.'

'I don't see why she can't just talk to the headmaster or mistress at whatever school she goes to,' Ron murmured, in between bites of his toast. 'I mean, they have those at Durmstrang or Beauxbatons as well, don't they?'

'Are you both daft?' Hermione leaned across the table, levelling both boys with an annoyed glance – and was met with empty, blinking eyes. She sighed, 'Ginny and I were discussing the Order meeting from earlier this week, and Dumbledore hinting at some dark magical artefacts that Voldemort is supposed to possess.' She waited a beat and then, seeing their expressions had yet to change, 'You don't think he just had that information lying about, don't you? No, I think someone must have clued him in.'

Sophie choked on a bite of toast, coughing loudly before finally managing to wash the offending piece of bread down with a sip of pumpkin juice. When she did, she noticed that the eyes of not only Hermione but of all the others were now trained on her. She managed a snort. 'No offence, but that reasoning made you consider me and not the person whose house Voldemort has literally been camping out in for the past year?'

Hermione shrugged, looking not at all apologetic as she said, 'We all know Malfoy's too new and too incompetent to be trusted with such important information. You however…'

'You could be His daughter for all we know.'

She sniffed in disdain at Ron, even whilst damning her past life-self for being so stubborn about not acknowledging the existence of the Cursed Child timeline in the Harry Potter universe – but remembering vaguely that there was something about a daughter in there. 'Well I'm not.' Seeing how their suspicious expressions did not budge, Sophie sighed, realising there would be no way to come out of this conversation without at least giving some ground. 'Fine, yes maybe I told him about the Horcruxes. But that doesn't mean I'm evil!'

'Then how did you come by this information?" Harry asked, just as suspicious as before.

'There's just… stuff I know, okay?' She pushed back her chair, snatching her plate of half-eaten toast from the table. 'Dumbledore has decided to trust me on this – perhaps you should try to do the same.' Then she stormed from the room.

August 10, 1996
London

She finished the remainder of her toast in the drawing room, seated on the weathered sofa facing the large window overlooking the street. With disinterest, she watched the Muggles – when had they stopped being just people, like her? – outside going about their daily business, as she vehemently tried to ignore the storm that was brewing inside of her. With similar vigour, she kept her gaze firmly trained away from the tapestry that covered the entire wall to the left of her.

When Sophie had first dropped herself into the dust-filled cushions of the sofa, she had been closer to throwing the toast across the room than to eating it, annoyance and anger battling for the upper hand and keeping her jaws firmly pressed together. Then, after some time passed and she found her hunger winning from her emotions in priority, she allowed herself to think about what happened more rationally. And when she did, she was forced to admit that, albeit perhaps not expressed in the most tactful of manners, she could not reasonably fault Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny – and probably all other members of the Order of the Phoenix – their mistrust. They did not know her, had no reason to trust her, and so far she had not really given them a reason to think she had acquired her knowledge in any other way than by being Voldemort's daughter. Yes, she suspected that the moment to open up about some of her secrets would be sooner rather than later. However, before she did, there was someone else she needed to talk to first.

Ever since he had appeared on her doorstep, she had tried – perhaps with more force than with all the others – to keep Draco in the dark. She had forced up a wall between them, fearing what he would do if he if he found out she had lied to him. Had lied about everything. In a way, it seemed she had been successful in driving him away, only it did not feel much like a success. The truth was that she wanted him to be her friend, even after all these years. And the only way she even had a shot at that was by being honest to him, before more of her secrets would be revealed and he would learn of the extent of her deception from someone else. Oh if only she were a Gryffindor!

-xxx-

Despite her resolve to tell him, Sophie spent most of the day and evening locked up in her room with a book, even skipping dinner feigning sickness – which was not entirely untrue, as she did feel physically sick to her stomach with nerves. Fortunately, it seemed Hermione and Ginny had been somewhat affected by her outburst that morning, for they left her alone for the day and even accepted the excuse she gave them without a word.

She wanted to remain in bed, her head hidden under the covers, for the rest of her life. Instead, it was mere minutes after Hermione and Ginny had left that Sophie found herself crawling out of bed, suddenly too restless to be in that same room anymore. She passed over the landing quietly, listening for a moment by the staircase at the voices drifting up from the dining room. Then, she started to make her way up the steps to the next floor. She wasn't quite sure where she was heading, but found her feet passing the second and third floor, only coming to a halt on the upper floor, where she knew were Sirius and Regulus' rooms. She passed Sirius' room, feeling it inappropriate to snoop around in the room of a man who was only recently deceased, and pushed down the serpent-shaped doorknob of the other door.

Long ago, in a past life, she had had a bit of an interest in Regulus Arcturus Black. An unlikely hero. A boy who was brought up to be the perfect son, the perfect follower. Who dropped out of school to become a Death Eater. A boy who followed mindlessly, performing awful deeds because his master desired him to. A boy who made all the wrong choices – but when it mattered most, chose to do what was right. Perhaps it was no wonder after all that she had so desperately wanted to help Draco…

Sophie wandered around the room aimlessly, closely inspecting the many magical knickknacks but not daring to disturb any of the objects. She tried to ignore the many magical newspaper clippings that covered the walls, detailing horrific murders and attacks on Muggles and Muggleborns, undoubtedly displayed there in a sickening sort of pride. As easy as it had been to focus on his final redemption when she had read about him, it was a bit harder now that she was faced with the full extent of Regulus' beliefs in pureblood superiority.

At one point she passed a dark heavy wooden dresser, on top of which stood a pile of textbooks and an exquisite looking wizarding chess set. From one of the half-open drawers peaked out a piece of rich green cashmere, but it was the sight of something blinking in the fading sunlight underneath that caught her attention. Pulling open the drawer, for a moment she considered fate had brought her to find Slytherin's locket. Then, as she brushed aside the cashmere sweater that partially covered the object, she realized that the sparkle was not at all caused by the reflective surface of a piece of jewellery, but rather was the shine of the silvery title on an ancient-looking book. Now completely moving the sweater to the side, Sophie carefully lifted the book from the drawer, holding it up to read the full title.

'Secrets of the Darkest Art,' she read out loud, turning the book over but finding no additional explanation on the back. Still, she ignored her curiosity, watching the Harry Potter movies having taught her enough to know that it was a bad idea to just open books that dealt with dark magic. There was something else too, a spark of recognition that she could not place. Before she knew the significance of the book, it was probably best to refrain from reading it.

All of a sudden, Sophie became aware of the fact that outside the window, the sun had almost completely set. Dinner must be finished soon – if it wasn't already – and given her already questionable status in the group she really couldn't afford being caught snooping in an ex-Death Eater's room. She hesitated for a moment, then pushed the drawer back to its original position. Hiding the book in the fold of her checkered flannel shirt, she quickly slipped out of the room.

August 10, 1996
London

Sophie had only just returned to her shared bedroom, stuffing the dark arts book under some clothes in her duffle bag, and settled on the covers with one of the more innocent books that she had brought from home when Hermione and Ginny entered. They immediately stopped talking on noticing her, and quietly grabbed some things from their belongings – Ginny a deck of some kind of cards and Hermione an advanced spell book. When they made their way back out of the door, Hermione lingered for a moment in the doorway.

'Eh… Sophie?'

'Huh?' She replied, her surprise at being talked at, let alone in so civil and even gentle a way, for a moment making her forget her annoyance with the girl.

'I just wanted to apologize for earlier today – and if I'm being honest, for all the days before that. You were right: professor Dumbledore trusts you and for now, that should just be enough. We had no right to treat you like this without even knowing you.'

For a moment Sophie just stared at the brunette, whose eyes were currently still trained on her brown leather boots. Even if she wanted to stay mad, Sophie knew she couldn't. Earlier that day she had already admitted to herself that the others were right to be suspicious of her; now it would just be time she admitted it to them too. Besides, she never did like it to be at odds with someone.

'It's alright, Hermione. I know I haven't really been making it easy for you guys to trust me.'

'I guess we haven't been trying very hard either,' she admitted, smiling a self-deprecating smile that Sophie returned in kind. 'We're going over to the drawing room. Ginny, Harry, and Ron will be playing Exploding Snap – you're free to join.'

'O-oh,' Sophie stuttered, 'Thank you, but eh… I would really like to continue reading my book,' she held up the book in her lap, which she had up until now only been staring at unseeingly, 'Maybe some other time?'

'Sure,' Hermione was about to turn, 'Hey isn't that a Muggle book?'

Sophie looked down at her weathered copy of Alice in Wonderland, hating that she would have to lie once more, 'Yeah, I guess it is. A girl at school told me it was quite good, so I thought I'd give it a try.'

Hermione seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she nodded and gave her another half-smile. 'Alright well, enjoy. If you change your mind, you know where to find us.'

-xxx-

Sophie waited a full five minutes before she put the book down, quite assured that Hermione would not return. She slipped back into her trainers and brushed a hand through her loose hair before heading out. She could hear the voices of the Golden Trio and Ginny drifting over from the drawing room as she made her way towards the stairs, and climbed her way to the third floor. There, she stood still for a moment in front of the first door, until she at last gathered enough courage to knock. When the voice inside called – drawled – for her to enter, she steeled herself, before pushing the door open.