The usual disclaimers apply. This is fan fiction and I do not claim to own the Harry Potter universe or any of the characters or places that appear in the original books.

This story covers Claudia Avery's Hogwarts years, from the fourth year onwards. The story is packed with adventure and mystery from the get go. The romance is a real slowburn and nothing much happens on that front until about chapter sixteen and from then on, it is a bit of rollercoaster. Sirius is a big feature of this story from the start, but the other Marauders do not really appear until about chapter twenty-eight.

M-rated due to content in later chapters (and some coarse language). References to domestic violence throughout.

Jan 2021 update: I have started going back and editing earlier chapter. The content remains unchanged. I am just tweaking my style - it is staggering how much it has improved since I started writing this. Hoping that is going to make the beginning of the story flow bit better and gives readers better idea of how the rest of the story is like.

Summer from Hell

Claudia Avery was standing alone on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere, her trunk at her feet. She was fuming. Her parents had decided that she needed straightening up and sent her to spend the summer with their distant relatives in Bavaria. They took her wand. She would not be able to see any of her friends. Or write to them for that matter. She knew her father would have made sure of that.

A weak smirk flickered across her face. At least, she would not have to spend the summer in close quarters with her immediate family. Her father Frederick may have been a severe man with too much pride and little affection for anyone, but at least he was easy to avoid. The same could not be said about Claudia's older brother Marcus and her mother Cassandra.

Feeling a little better about her prospects, she picked up her heavy trunk and started dragging it towards a small chateau up ahead. The sun was burning on Claudia's skin, she was sweating, and her lungs were full of the dust from the road.

The chateau was much further than it looked, and it took Claudia a good part of an hour to get there. She knocked on the heavy door.

The door was opened almost instantly by an old house-elf, who did not say a word and let her down a dark corridor towards the back of the house. It was cold and unwelcoming. The sun and heat of the outside world had quickly been forgotten. The sweat on Claudia's neck went ice cold, and she began to shiver. The house-elf pointed towards an ajar door, wrenched Claudia's trunk out of her hand and left.

Claudia tentatively opened the door and entered. The room was large but dark and barely decorated. Before she could look around properly, she heard a coarse female voice.

"Are you the Avery squib? You've grown since I last saw you." Claudia's stomach turned. She tried her best to forget that for her entire first year at Hogwarts, the rumour was that she was a squib. She turned around and saw her Great Aunt Jutta wearing a sour expression on her face.

"I'm not a squib, as you very well know." Claudia said defiantly, but before she could explain, Jutta cut her off.

"There will be no talking back in this house." The old woman barked. "Now go to you room and be down for dinner at five. Detlef will show you up." Jutta returned to her paperwork. That was the end of the conversation.

The house-elf had appeared out of nowhere again, grabbed Claudia's hand and led her upstairs.

"Do you speak any English, Detlef?" Claudia asked hopefully, but the house-elf ignored her. "Great. This is going to be a long summer." She mumbled to herself.

Once in the room that Jutta assigned her, Claudia slumped on the bed. The word 'squib' still ringing in her ears. She hated thinking back to her first year at Hogwarts. She was so excited to go, to get away from her parents, but from the first class, it was a complete disaster. She had to sit and watch her classmates getting better and better with spells, while she could barely produce any magic at all. Even after three years, she could still practically hear her fellow students whispering and looking in her direction. Marcus spent the entire year avoiding her out of sheer embarrassment.

It was not until Professor McGonagall suggested Claudia takes a trip to Ollivanders to have her wand looked at that her fortune improved. She smiled, closed her eyes and thought back to the trip to Diagon Alley during her first summer back from Hogwarts. It was one of her first truly happy memories.

She remembered the argument with her mother, who did not want to buy her a new wand. According to Claudia's parents, true wizards inherited wands from their ancestors. She remembered Mr Ollivander weighing her elm wand with great scepticism on his face. It turned out that elm wands chose noble wizards with dignity and elegance. Even after two years, Claudia had to laugh at that. Dignity and elegance were not the qualities anyone would associate with her, ever.

She remembered the first time she closed her fingers around her new wand. The moment Claudia touched it, she knew it was the one for her. It was plain and made from red-tinted cedar wood, with dragon heartstring core. According to Mr Ollivander, cedar wood was apparently suitable for wizards with a strength of character and great perception. Claudia's heart jumped when he said that. To her, these things were a lot more useful than dignity and elegance.

School became so much better after that. Now, about to start her fourth year at Hogwarts, she was getting pretty good. The whispering had stopped.

Claudia instinctively reached for her wand, but it was not there. It was locked in her parents' safe back in London. Claudia opened her eyes and sighed. She missed it already.

She looked around the room. It was even barer than the sitting room, with just a bed, a chair and a desk. She got up and walked around.

On the desk she found a piece of paper with a list entitled 'Rules' in her father's handwriting. Claudia skimmed it: "do as you are told, no letters to or from friends, no wandering around without permission, no books".

"No books?!" Claudia growled, crunching the list in her hand. Suddenly, she froze.

She ran towards her trunk, forced it open and rummaged through it manically. All the books she packed for her trip were gone. She threw her belongings across her room in anger and kicked the trunk.

She looked at the paper again and her heart sank even further. At the bottom of the page, in her mother's neat handwriting, were the words "No flying".

Her parents have gone too far. What was she supposed to do in this godforsaken hellhole for six weeks without her books or her broom? What about all the homework she was supposed to do?! Claudia paced her room angrily until dinner, her jaw and fists clenched.

When she got down to the dining room, her Aunt Jutta was already at the table and did not look pleased to be kept waiting.

"Sit." She barked at Claudia. "In this house, we eat on time. If you are late again, you do not eat." She added, before gesturing angrily to the house-elf.

"You know why you are here, don't you?" Jutta asked, as she turned back to Claudia, with a hint of menace in her voice.

Claudia knew full well why she was there. Her parents did not like her friends or attitude to family traditions. But that in itself would not have been enough. The last straw was when she was playing some two-on-two Quidditch with her fellow Slytherins at the Blacks' garden party last week and crashed into their gazebo.

The gazebo was in pieces, and so was Claudia. She tore her dress, sprained her ankle, and had a bleeding gash on her arm. Her mother was furious. She dragged Claudia into a bathroom with such force that Claudia could still see the fingernail scratches on her arm. And her cheek was still burning from where her mother struck her. It was her mother's hypocrisy that annoyed Claudia the most. Cassandra was all smiles and put together in front of her friends, but in private she could be very cruel. Nothing that Claudia did was ever right. Her hair was too messy, her clothes all wrong, flying was not for girls. The list went on.

Claudia, however, had no particular desire to discuss any of this with someone she barely knew and did not particularly like. This did not deter Aunt Jutta, who picked up a piece of parchment and frowned as her eyes run across the page.

"Disobeying your parents, embarrassing your family, fraternising with mudbloods." Jutta read, presumably from Frederick's letter.

Claudia squeezed the edge of the table until her knuckles went white. She hated when her parents called her friends names. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, her aunt flicked her wand.

"Silencio!" Jutta said sharply, and Claudia was left opening and closing her mouth like a fish on dry land. Jutta laughed and continued. "I warned you that there will be no talking back in this house. Now, your father sent some rules which are in your room. Your mother also wrote that you are not to fly, but I do not agree. Physical strength is a foundation of a strong character. You may fly every day in the morning. My gardener's boys will lend you a broom and will go with you."

Claudia had to try very hard not to look too pleased. She had a feeling that if she did, Aunt Jutta might just change her mind.

"And in the afternoons, you will have lessons." Jutta continued.

"What lessons?" Claudia wanted to ask but could not, she was still under the silencing charm. Jutta waved her wand again, and Claudia felt her throat loosen. "I don't have my wand with me." She said sceptically.

Aunt Jutta said nothing. The dinner arrived, and they finished it in silence.

"Can I go for a walk?" Claudia asked, as she finished her meal. Jutta shook her head.

"Borrow some books?" Claudia added hopefully. Jutta gestured to Detlef, who bowed and promptly left the room.

"He will bring some to you. Go now." She barked.

There was no point arguing, so Claudia went back to her room. It was still too early to sleep, though. She had no books, no wand, no quill or paper. She was bored already.

Claudia threw her scattered possessions into her trunk and collapsed on the bed. She stared at the ceiling, angry tears forming in her eyes. This was going to be the worse six weeks of her life.

Soon after, the door opened and a small pile of books floated in and landed next to her, courtesy of Detlef.

She picked them up one by one. Pure-Blood Directory: Annotated Edition. Predictable. Claudia sighed and threw the book on the floor. Die Geschichte der Eschelbach-Dynastie. Her German stretched just about far enough to understand that this was a book about the history of her father's family. His mother, Aunt Jutta's sister, was from the old German pureblood Eschelbach family. She came to England as a young girl and ended up marrying an Englishman. Disappointingly, there were no pictures in it. So, she threw it away too.

Claudia picked up the last book. Her eyes widened, and she sat up. Moste Potente Potions. The poor house-elf probably had no idea what he brought her, just picked up a random English book. Potions were Claudia's best subject, and she knew full well that this book was locked firmly in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library. And for a good reason. It contained instructions for many dangerous, controversial and rare potions. Claudia flicked through the book, barely able to contain her excitement. Amortentia, Death Potion, Drink of Despair, Felix Felicis… The list went on. She read through it over and over, plotting how to take it back to London with her, until she fell asleep still clutching it in her arms.

Claudia was woken up early by the sound of a cockerel in the courtyard that her room was overlooking. She got dressed and made her way downstairs.

Detlef was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He handed her a piece of dry bread and led her outside, towards one of the outbuildings. Once there, he knocked on the door and vanished. A boy, about Claudia's age, stuck his head out barely few seconds later.

"Are you here to pick up the broom?" He asked in broken English. Claudia nodded. "Wait. Me and my brother are supposed to show you." The boy added and disappeared back into the house.

When he emerged again, he was accompanied by a younger boy and was clutching three broomsticks in his hand.

"I'm Sebastian and this is Maximillian." He said, gesturing towards his brother.

"Claudia." She uttered and waved at them awkwardly. She did not enjoy meeting new people. All she wanted was to get on that broom and fly.

"You know how to fly, girl?" Asked Sebastian with a smirk.

"I know how to fly." Claudia scoffed. She wrenched the broom out of Sebastian's hand, mounted it and kicked off the ground.

The boys joined her in the air and sped towards the foot of the nearby mountains. Suddenly, Sebastian stopped dead and pulled his broom into a sharp dive. Claudia followed him, not wanting to be shown up. They raced side by side and pulled out of the dive just a few feet off the ground.

"You know how to fly." Sebastian said and gave her a broad smile. "I was not expecting that from a girl from the big house."

"Race you to the forest." Claudia laughed and pressed herself against her broom again.

They flew towards the forest, slalomed among the trees, and practised with the quaffle that Maximillian brought with him. They flew back just before lunch, exhausted.

"We play Quidditch with other kids from the surrounding villages every Saturday." Sebastian said as they landed in the courtyard. "You should join our team. We could use a better chaser."

Claudia could not have been happier at that suggestion. Flying made her forget everything else.

But her good mood did not last long. That afternoon was her first lesson, and it was as terrible as she was expecting it to be. Aunt Jutta had hired a retired governess called Frau Ottenberg to teach Claudia German, etiquette and history, which Claudia knew to be more pure-blood propaganda than actual facts. She loved history, but what Frau Ottenberg was teaching her was utter garbage. She would have to apologise to Professor Binns when she got back to Hogwarts. Claudia always thought he was the worst history teacher in the world, but he had nothing on Frau Ottenberg.

Any sort of dissent or even a hint of sarcasm in these 'lessons' were met with a swift punishment. Usually, in the form of a long pointer hitting Claudia across her knuckles. Occasionally, it took a form of a mild jinx. Claudia was furious, but there was little she could do about it. She was outnumbered and did not have her wand. The only saving grace of having to spend every afternoon listening to Frau Ottenberg's rubbish was that she managed to steal a quill, some ink and parchment, which she used to copy instructions from Moste Potente Potions in the middle of the night.

And so her summer went. Flying, Quidditch, 'lessons' with Frau Ottenberg, mind-numbing dinners with Aunt Jutta, and copying Moste Potente Potions... Over and over again.

Claudia contemplated flying away. But she did not know where she was, she had no wand or money. But most of all, she did not want to give her parents the satisfaction. It was going to take a lot more for her to break.

Finally, the last day of August had arrived and it was time to go back to London. Claudia packed her things and said her goodbyes. Sebastian promised to write about the Quidditch league. Aunt Jutta barely looked up from her newspapers.

Claudia sat on her trunk in the courtyard, clutching the portkey in her hand, waiting for the clocktower to strike ten. That was when her father arranged for the portkey to leave. It finally did.

The world around Claudia stopped spinning and she landed in the garden of her parents' house in Hampstead. She saw her father in the window of his study, checking his pocket watch and then disappearing back behind the curtains without as much of a wave or a smile.

"Welcome home." Claudia muttered to herself. She just needed to survive one evening, before she on her way back to Hogwarts. Just one more evening.

"I've missed you, my dear." Cassandra shrieked as she run out of the back door. She hugged and kissed Claudia, who flinched at her mother's touch. But she bit her lip and endured it. If she just managed to keep her mouth shut and temper under control for one evening, she would be in Hogwarts. Think of Hogwarts. She kept repeating in her head.

Claudia managed to hide in her room until dinner. She perused her new school textbooks, noticing that her Muggle Studies book was missing and replaced by a Divination one. Her family hated that Claudia took muggle studies and her mother was personally offended that she was not taking divination. Divination was Cassandra's favourite subject at school, and she would have loved to read cards and analyse dreams with her daughter. Claudia scoffed in disgust at the mere thought of that and threw the divination book into the bottom of her wardrobe. She would just need to speak to Professor Slughorn to explain that she was not dropping Muggle Studies and get that book in Hogsmeade.

Claudia took a deep breath. She must not bring it up at dinner. If she could just keep her cool tonight, she might even get some pocket money. Determined, she started on homework. She needed to catch-up on all the work she was meant to do over the summer. That was going to take all night and the whole journey to Hogwarts at the very least.

By a stroke of luck, couple of Marcus' friends were staying over. This made dinner much more bearable, as Claudia could simply eat submerged in her own thoughts, while the others made small talk, and even managed to leave dinner early to continue with her homework. Her mother did not approve but did not dare to cause a scene in front of strangers.

Back in her room, Claudia yawned as she moved yet another essay on the completed pile. She needed some coffee if she had any hope of finishing even half of her homework in time. As she made her way down to the kitchen, she heard her father's voice coming out of the study. Moving as quietly as she could, Claudia hid behind the door and listened intently.

"I need you to keep an eye on your sister, Marcus." Frederick said. "I want to know who she spends her time with and what she gets up to." Marcus did not say anything but Frederick continued. "There is another thing I need you to do for the sake of the family and our kind. Shut the door."

Not wanting them to know she was listening, Claudia dived behind the coatrack. She waited for a minute and then snuck back up to her room. She did not dare loiter by the door or continue to the kitchen.

Claudia expected her idiot brother to spy on her in Hogwarts, but what could he possibly do that would help the wizardkind? Marcus was two years above Claudia. He was not the best student and it was a source of great annoyance to their father that Claudia was much brighter than his son and heir. However, what Marcus lacked academically, he made up for on the Quidditch pitch and especially in popularity. In Slytherin, where both Marcus and Claudia were sorted to, Marcus was adored. It was a different story with students from the other houses, who Marcus and his gang bullied constantly.

Claudia just about managed to stop herself thinking about her brother and her father's mysterious instructions and to make herself continue with homework. But she could not stop thinking of Hogwarts, her friends, the Quidditch pitch, the library… She fell asleep, exhausted, on top of her Charms essay.