"Dear Marina,

I hope you've had a good year so far. I'm sorry for not writing sooner but I was in France – as you might imagine, looking for work. Andromeda and Ted already gave me an update; I've sent the signed permission sheet directly to Albus. Just promise you won't get into as much trouble in Hogsmeade as I used to do.

So you've met Harry. I could tell from your letter that you don't know what to do about it. I won't be of much help, I'm afraid. If I was there, I would tell him all the stories myself, but now it seems that falls on you.

But, sweetheart, what you tell him is up to you. I know you think you owe him the truth. Well, the truth is that Rose left her journals to you. Everything that's in them is yours. Now, if you decide you want to share some of that with Harry, you know you won't get any protest from me.

Give Carmen my best.

Cheers,

Remus

P.S.: Just keep in mind that sometimes the truth only leaves more questions than answers. And you will be the one he'll ask."

"Well, that's remarkably unhelpful," Marina harrumphed and handed the letter to Carmen, who was standing behind her. Her friend's eagle-owl, Iris, had just delivered it and she fed the bird some bacon as reward. Merlin knew where Remus had been when her letter had found him.

"It's classic Remus," Carmen agreed. "He'd make a great teacher, you know. Letting you learn from your decisions."

"You sound like him," Marina stated dryly, stabbing her breakfast. "And usually I'm on board because it also means he lets me make my own decisions. This time I really didn't want to decide."

Carmen put a hand on her shoulder, coaxing Iris onto her arm with the other, and squeezed lightly.

"Just tell him whatever you think he can handle."

"He shouldn't have to handle any of it," Marina said through clenched teeth. "And is it just me, or is it very odd that neither Dumbledore nor anyone else seems to notice that he's way too thin. Too small. Too insecure."

She didn't like her conclusion whatsoever. But all signs pointed toward abuse. Dromeda had made it very clear in her last letter that Marina was not to interfere with the headmaster's decisions who had obviously deemed the muggles appropriate. It was the first time she'd wanted to jinx her aunt, even from afar. She was sure Dumbledore had his reasons, probably very good ones, but she was still angry. The way Harry was acting was very much like the way she'd been acting, according to Ted, after the Tonks had taken her in: afraid that the slightest misstep would get her sent away. Her uncle hadn't been able to explain how a three-year old could possibly be that aware but he swore up and down that she had done it.

So naturally, the more she found out about the Dursleys, the more she wanted to hex them to hell.

"He's getting better," Carmen tried to comfort her. "Hogwarts is good for him."

"Hogwarts is good for everyone," Marina clarified but smiled. The subject of their conversation had just entered the Great Hall, Ron Weasley in tow and appropriately awed by the still unfinished Hallowe'en decorations. The first feasts were always impressive.

Harry spotted his team-mates across from Marina and moved to sit next to them. The three Chasers, who had politely pretended to be deaf while she'd vented her frustration, broke out into big smiles.

"I see he's made an impression," she commented dryly. It was the same everywhere; the Gryffindor common room, the Quidditch team... she had even overheard some teachers sing his praises. Wherever he went, Harry had an impact.

"You should see him fly," Angelina told her excitedly. "He's amazing."

"He could've given Charlie a run for his money," the twins nodded their agreement. That was indeed high praise, coming from the brothers of the Hogwarts legend. Charlie's records were still unbeaten.

"I have seen him fly," Marina admitted, just as Harry and Ron were sitting down. "He's a natural. He has also reinforced my strong belief to keep both feet firmly on the ground."

"You can't fly?" Harry asked, sounding positively appalled at the thought. Carmen chuckled behind her.

"Of course I can. I just don't. I'm scared of heights, so I like flying about as much as Potions."

Harry looked aghast but then again, she hadn't expected a Quidditch player to understand.

"I've only ever seen her that queasy when I'm flying," Carmen confirmed, still standing there and making no move to join her friends at the Ravenclaw table. Marina could hear the grin in her voice.

"You play?" Ron asked and both boys got very eager faces.

"I got into my house team this year," Carmen announced proudly. Marina whirled around, which was very awkward on the table benches, and gaped at the brunette.

"You did? Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded and mentally made a list whom she had to send letters now. Her friend would be proud enough to tell Jupiter, seeing as he had played on his house team himself, but probably wouldn't tell her brother. She and David had spent most the summer fighting and neither one had been forthcoming on the why of it.

"You've been busy," Carmen replied defensively.

"So are you, that's not exactly news," Marina huffed. "You getting on the team so beats letters from home. Did you get it?"

"Yes, I'm now officially a Ravenclaw Beater," Carmen beamed. "Thank Ted for taking me to play tennis and baseball, would you?"

Marina snorted. Her uncle had taken them both to play some muggle sports. Of course, he'd spiced it up a bit by spelling the balls to be harder to see and hit. It had been good practice.

"Will do. But as far as the tournament goes, I'm all Gryffindor," she added with a grin. She'd always cheered for her own house, naturally. It was the only time, besides the House Cup, when she and Carmen competed against each other.

"May the best team win," Carmen announced pompously. All of them held out for about five seconds, then half the table was laughing. Carmen grinned broader than ever and waved at them, before joining her team at the Ravenclaw table.

"She seems nice," Harry commented, almost hesitant. Marina smiled.

"She can give a girl complexes. She aces all exams, plays Quidditch, takes an extracurricular in Arts and somehow still finds time to tutor the poor kids in Potions," Marina listed. "It's depressing."

"You tutor," Harry argued. "And don't you take Ancient Studies?"

She raised her eyebrows. She was pretty sure she'd never mentioned her extracurricular; it focused on really old cultures and their spells. It made for a few nice tricks up her sleeve.

Harry realised his slip and blushed.

"I might have asked Wood where you went on Saturdays."

And of course the Captain of the Quidditch team didn't want his new star player distracted, wondering what she was up to, and had told him. Oliver was a bit obsessed that way.

"We're also both in Frog Choir," she nodded.

"How is anyone supposed to compete?" Fred asked dramatically, clutching his hands to his chest. Angelina did Marina the favour and smacked him on the arm.

Later that day...

Marina stared. Everybody was running around like chicken with their heads cut off, gesturing and talking.

Marina stared; even as the students were allowed to leave their common rooms again.

Marina stared. Carmen and the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor house teams joined her, clearly impressed and animatedly chattering away like waterfalls.

And Marina still stared – at the oversized, cranky mountain troll that had no business being in the castle, let alone in the girls' bathroom.

"Marina?" Carmen asked tentatively, obviously aware just how short of freaking out she really was. A mountain troll. Harry and Ron had fought a fully grown mountain troll.

"How the bloody hell did that thing get in here?" she exploded, louder than planned, and even forgot not to swear in front of the teachers. The room got silent as everyone stared at her in shock. Usually, she had better manners than to talk to adults that way – Dromeda had seen to that.

Right now though, she had a mighty hard time not to jinx anyone who had any role of responsibility and had so obviously failed tonight. She'd also be having a word with Percy for not even noticing that two of his charges had run off.

"We don't know," McGonagall answered her almost gently, which was very much at odds with the woman's normal demeanour.

"Not that it is any of your business," Snape sneered in his usual disgust for just about everyone.

"Yes, well, I am making Harry my business," Marina fired back, for once not biting her tongue and barely refraining from calling the Potions master an oversized bat out loud.

"Potter isn't your concern-"

"You haven't been hearing his parents die every night for the past ten years!" she snapped, shrugging off the concerned hands trying to hold her back. "You haven't been hearing him cry as he watched her die! If someone has no business where Harry is concerned, it's you!"

Too late, she realised what she had just admitted. Marina had sworn to Dromeda and Ted that the nightmares had stopped a few years ago. There was no way McGonagall wasn't going to enlightened her aunt.

Hagrid, a quiet observer as always, looked at her in concern. She was pretty sure Flitwick was hyperventilating with the high-pitched squeak that had escaped him. McGonagall and Sprout were looking at a loss for words.

Marina covered her eyes with one hand. Then she took a deep breath and looked back up, her back straight – and was facing the just arriving Albus Dumbledore, whose expression told her he'd heard. Fantastic.

"Not a single word to Harry about this," she demanded and turned her back on the teachers to stare down Fred and George. "I mean it."

The gingers nodded hastily, the rest of the teams promising their silence, and Carmen just took her hand, looking utterly miserable on Marina's behalf.

"Go," she asked her friend quietly. "Make sure those two geniuses don't get into more trouble tonight."

As long as I'm stuck here, went without saying. The other students hurriedly left the bathroom, while she was left to deal with the teachers. Everybody was looking concerned, obviously wondering if she was about to have a complete meltdown. Well. Everyone but Snape.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor," he announced coldly. "Be grateful it isn't more after that outburst."

With that oh-so-gracious statement, he turned on his heels and limped out. Limped? She wondered what the hell he'd been doing anywhere near that three-headed monstrosity.

"Black-," McGonagall started, struggling for what to say.

"I'm fine, Professor," she interrupted the woman. "I've always had nightmares and no one ever noticed. It's nothing new."

"What does your mind healer say?" Sprout asked carefully, probably suspecting that she would not appreciate that question.

"That unless I allow her to meddle around in my head with a memory spell, it's unlikely I'll ever forget."

After that particular session she'd lied to Dromeda's and Ted's faces. If there was nothing anyone could do about it, her aunt and uncle didn't need to worry themselves.

"I could-," Flitwick started but Marina cut him off.

"No. Thanks for offering but no," she said firmly. "No one gets to mess with my head. There's a reason Dromeda has been teaching me occlumency for two years now."

And Marina had been a spectacular disaster at it for a year; until David Nott had sat down with her and asked why she thought it didn't work. He'd given her a few tips, since he'd mastered the skill for his auror training, and it had helped. It was slow progress but she was getting better.

"Very well," Dumbledore conceded. "But that still leaves your... opinion about Professor Snape." She huffed.

"Believe it or not, up until he spoke up Snape was the last thing on my mind," she told him. "I'm a bit more concerned with the fact that two eleven year-olds fought a troll tonight." A troll that was still out cold, if as cranky asleep as he'd surely been awake.

"I awarded Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley five points each," McGonagall told her grimly. "They went after it to save Ms. Granger, who foolishly believed she could handle it on her own. I took five points for her lack of judgement."

Marina had a hard time keeping the snort in. Hermione, breaking the rules? Those three had told their Head of House quite a story.

"Well, this will make them inseparable," she sighed, gesturing towards the twitching beast.

"If you would like to check on Harry, we're done here," Dumbledore said quietly and for a second she wondered if he'd read her mind. Then she reminded herself that unauthorised legilimency was illegal.

"Professors." She nodded at the lot of them, before sprinting out of that bathroom and all the way to the common room.

The next morning...

Harry, Ron and Hermione were the heroes of the Gryffindor table. Everybody was jealous it hadn't been them, facing the troll. Morons. Even some students from other houses came over to hear the story from the participants themselves. Thankfully, all three of them had enough sense not to talk about it.

As soon as she'd entered the common room the night before, Alicia had pointed her to the corner furthest away from the entrance where the three first-years had been sitting, still visibly shaken from their adventure. Marina had gone over there and, not caring about the audience, pulled Harry into a hug. Her chest ached, remembering how he had frozen in shock before hugging her back. Her empathy had told her that he'd had no idea how to react. That he'd never had anyone care before so it confused him. Of course, a few seconds later she had berated them all and asked for the real story.

She was torn between the inevitable pride of knowing he'd only risked his neck to save an unsuspecting Hermione and the fear of everything that could have gone terribly wrong.

Harry had sat down next to her this morning and she sensed it was to comfort her. The boy kind of had that backwards, she thought wryly.

"So how's Transfiguration going?" she asked him to get the conversation away from the troll.

"Better," he grinned at her. "After you helped me, it's been working like a charm." He rolled his eyes at the unintended pun.

"McGonagall is fair. You're a pure-blood but you might as well be muggle-born. She'll keep that in mind."

Most wizarding families taught their kids the basics before they ever came to school.

"Mum was pretty good, right?" he asked almost casually. She hadn't yet told him about her empathy, otherwise he would have known not to bother; she could sense how starved for information he was.

"Best of her year," she confirmed. "Sort of like a redhead Hermione. Flitwick's best student ever."

Harry debated all of three seconds, before he couldn't help himself anymore.

"How do you know that?"

The three Beaters had overheard her telling Carmen that very thing, so now they snuck glances her way, concern written all over their faces. Marina reached deep down for her Gryffindor courage, that always seemed to disappear where Harry was concerned, and took a deep breath, bracing herself.

"My mum was Lily's best friend since their first year. She wasn't home when she died, but Dromeda and the others went through her stuff. Mum was writing journals – she left them all to me. Dromeda and Ted gave them to me three years ago. And mum wrote everything down."

Harry perked up considerably, looking at her with a mix of sympathy over the grief he could hear in her voice and hope. Marina wondered how long he would hesitate before asking her to let him read them. And she didn't think she'd have it in her to turn him down.

"The mail's coming!" Hermione informed them, oblivious to their rather serious conversation. Harry visibly swallowed whatever he'd been about to say and looked up. Mail time was always a sight. Hundreds of owls circled over their heads, only descending when they'd found the person they were delivering to.

Marina was surprised when one of the school owls hovered in front of her face, letting lose an impatient shriek, and dropping a whole bundle of letters in her cornflakes. Lovely.

"Wow," Harry commented with wide eyes as she sorted the letters by their handwriting.

"Overbearing worry-warts," she mumbled. "I wasn't the one fighting a troll and yet they'll all want a reply that I'm fine."

"Sorry," he replied sheepishly.

"Don't be. As reckless as it was, you saved Hermione."

And the three of them were indeed inseparable now. She supposed there were just some things you couldn't go through without becoming friends.

Marina,

I just heard what happened. Glad you're okay. If you're still interested, I'll teach you that spell over the holidays. Seems to me you might needed. Give Carmen a hug from me.

Cheers,

David

"Who's David?" Harry asked curiously, since he'd been reading from the side.

"Carmen's older brother. I used to think he was annoying when we were little, but he's actually a bit of a tutor now. When he isn't working."

"How old is he?"

"Nineteen. He works at the ministry. Speaking of-" The next missive had suspiciously famailiar handwriting.

"Constant vigilance! M."

Marina guffawed at that. She just shook her head when Harry shot her a look. It would take way too long to explain who Mad-Eye was right now. Besides, she'd promised the auror she wouldn't tell anyone how involved he was in her life. Paranoid as he was, he worried she might become a target for his numerous enemies otherwise.

"Marina,

we almost took you out of school after Minerva wrote to us. We will be talking about all of it during the holidays. We can't believe you lied to us. But that's a discussion best had in person.

We're glad Carmen and you are okay. It is unbelievable someone managed to get a troll into the school. The headmaster will be receiving a few choice words.

Now, as far as Harry is concerned: don't leave him out of your sight again, sweetheart. He seems to have James' penchant of getting into trouble, only a hundred times worse. Have you decided what to do about the journals yet? Let us now.

Our best to Carmen.

Love,

Dromeda & Ted"

Marina winced. She could feel Dromeda's disappointment dripping off that letter.

"Your aunt?" Harry asked in an almost commiserating tone.

"Yes. I slipped up last night in front of the teachers about... some nightmares I wasn't supposed to be having anymore. I lied to Aunt Dromeda's and Uncle Ted's faces about it two years ago. McGonagall apparently sent them an owl immediately."

Harry smiled somewhat amused and handed her the last letter for today. She would've known who it was from without the handwriting.

"Marina,

I hope you really are okay. Since I'm sure no one else will have bothered to tell you this, I will:

The troll, and Harry's involvement, was not your fault. He did exactly what James would have done – reckless, without thinking, but brave.

But seeing that even as a toddler you were protective of our boy, I know you probably had a small meltdown. Just remember everything we've taught you. You can handle it.

Make sure to cheer him on triple, to stand in for his father and me, during his first Quidditch match. Maybe ask Carmen to brew you a Calming Draught beforehand, though.

Write back to me as soon as you find time, please.

Love,

Remus"

Sometimes it was irritating how well he knew her.

"My godfather," Marina answered Harry's unspoken question. "He knows I can barely stand to watch Carmen play."

"But you are coming, right?" he asked and she heard the uncertainty plainly. She looked around, making sure no one was watching, for the eleven year-old's sake, before reaching over and ruffling his hair.

"Of course. I wouldn't miss it."

His answering grin made the ulcer she'd surely develop watching him play worth it.