A/N: Ever onwards.

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, property of respective owners etc.

Chapter 10

Jasmine awoke bright and early on Christmas morning – much like she always did on every other day of the year – and smiled slightly upon seeing the wrapped gifts poking up from the foot of her bed. Rolling out from under her covers, she stood, stretched and yawned loudly – having got back late the previous night from a meeting with the various persons searching for Black. She was grateful for having the room to herself allowing her such liberties – only three other people in all of Ravenclaw had stayed during these holidays.

With a small smile upon her face, she picked up the closest wrapped gift, a uniform cuboid that was almost certainly a book, in tasteful purple paper interweaved with golden ivy. Reading the tag to see it came from Nadia, Jasmine flipped it over and unwrapped the packaging to unveil an older looking tome entitled 'Obscure Elixirs from the Orient' by Marcus Smith. Flipping it open to the contents page showed the names of many potions she had never heard of, and she felt a slight bubble of excitement about reading through and then brewing some of them – one of the advantages of being a slight prodigy in potions was Snape allowed her access to the classroom out-of-hours so long as he was present, usually when marking. This wouldn't be such a boon, since she could brew anywhere outside of school, but for having access to both the man's knowledge, and his very well stocked supply room.

Most potions up to OWL level could be made with standardised potions kits each Hogwarts student bought, bar a few exceptions which required things from cupboards around the potions classroom.

At NEWT level, this number was vastly increased, especially in seventh year, and access to the small cupboard-like room off to the side of the classroom was allowed where shelves of rarer and more dangerous ingredients were stashed.

None of this compared to Snape's personal stores, which while she did not have unfettered access to, she could request certain items, he would ask what for, and if her reason was good enough, he would then retrieve them from the locked room that was easily the size of the classroom – if not larger – and was filled with the many things he used for himself and the school. For some of those ingredients, a Potions Mastery was a legal requirement to use, as the effects of misuse were quite dire. Arrogant git though he was, he certainly knew his potions, and his knowledge and aid – if not his lacklustre teaching ability – were a great boon to the select few with his favour. As far as she was aware, that group was limited to a few select Slytherins, and two other Ravenclaws apart from herself, including the head girl. In her first year, there had also been a seventh year Hufflepuff boy, although he was a member of the House of Smith – who had owned various potions businesses since time immemorial, and were descendants of Helga Hufflepuff, and most likely the book she now held was written by a member of their family. She doubted any Gryffindors had ever gained the dour man's interest, though.

Placing the book carefully on her bed, she considered what she had given the brunette girl. The tome on Healing Magics was fairly advanced for someone at a junior level, and contained what had seemed to her a good amount of useful spells in that field, as well as methodology in how they should be applied. The girl was slipping further into her mind as part of the play that was beginning to be set, compounded by how she had given Hermione a field manual from the Department of Criminal Investigations, at the Ministry of Magic. This was a follow-up, of course, to the muggle equivalent she had given the girl the prior year on how a normal detective worked.

Thinking of the bushy-haired Gryffindor, her eyes turned to the particularly unsubtle red and gold wrapped present, which again looked like a book. With a fond smile, she grabbed it and read it as coming from Hermione off of the tag.

Pulling the paper off revealed a thick, leather-bound book entitled 'A study on African tribal Runes.' With interest, she flipped the book open and gazed upon the unfamiliar symbols which were not part of the Hogwarts Ancient Runes syllabus at OWL or NEWT level with a grin upon her face. She knew these had allowed these tribes in the past to ink or brand the symbols upon their skin and grow stronger and more resilient through them via syphoning a little magic every day to make muscles grow better, or skin become tougher.

Safe be said, it was a field she at least had academic interest in, perhaps even a little interest in using them personally.

Next was a rather lumpy package with blue paper, and an envelope attached rather than a tag. With a raised eyebrow, she quickly read through the letter from Molly Weasley, once again thanking her profusely for saving her daughter's life, hoping that she was in good health and that she had a Merry Christmas. Unwrapping the gift unveiled a knitted, blue jumper with a black raven on the front, clearly handmade, but of decent quality. She supposed this was what a house-witch such as Mrs Weasley did in the months her huge family was away from her at boarding school. Further included, was a box of homemade mince pies, which – after testing for any harmful ingredients or potions – Jasmine decided was indicative of the 'mother's home cooking' those with loving families always raved about in books. That is to say, they were definitely enjoyable.

Finally, Jasmine took in the bottom package and frowned. She had been surprised to receive more than two presents already, but she had no idea who would be sending her what she believed the final gift to be if the shape was any indicator.

After turning it around and finding no label, note or envelope, she carefully undid the string to unveil a shiny, lacquered broomstick with an artfully moulded shape, and trimmed, symmetrical brush. Engraved on the tip of the handle in what to her eye seemed to be gold leaf was the number '42,' and on the reverse side the word 'Firebolt.'

Now, although Jasmine did not follow Quidditch or any other sport – beyond minor interest in betting upon them – even she had heard of the broom in newspapers that experts from Cloud Skimmers Incorporated had spent six years building, and that Quidditch fans were going mad over. This was by no means a cheap broom.

This was not the sort of thing that was sent without a nametag, and she certainly hadn't ordered it herself, so who had? As her mind flicked to the most likely answer, she dropped the broom on reflex, scowling at it.

Black.

Merlin knew where he got the money – unless he managed to contact Gringotts and use his position of Head of House Black to send for it by post. After all, the goblins took little notice of what was legal and illegal in the magical world, and they would be able to charge for such a transaction, so would be more than happy with lining their own pockets.

No matter how it had gotten here, or from whom it was sent, it definitely needed looking into, and she wouldn't be flying on it until she could get some confirmation. The best thing to do was probably to send a letter to the company that made it – they should have a receipt for who bought it, especially since her broom was so helpfully numbered.

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"If you think there's a danger, you should hand it in to the teachers to look at," Hermione stated as they entered the Great Hall, "and I think you're right; it most likely did come from Sirius Black."

"Hermione," Jasmine began, before an old codger appeared before them as if from nowhere.

"Did I hear mention of Sirius Black?" Dumbledore asked concernedly, turning his twinkling gaze on the pair of Gryffindors beside her – he knew she'd be unlikely to tell him everything in the same way they would.

"A broom, a…Firebolt wasn't it?" Hermione looked over to her for confirmation, to which she briskly nodded her head once, but said nothing. "Jasmine received one anonymously, and we think it might be sent by him and be cursed to throw her off or something."

"If that is the case, I'm going to have to ask that you allow the staff to examine this broom," the old meddler replied worriedly.

"That will not be necessary, sir," the ravenette stated with a force smile, "I have everything quite in hand."

"I'm going to have to insist, Miss Potter," he said with a disappointed look – he seemed to default to a wise old man, then this grandfather persona, and then next should be either the harmless old coot or the defeater of Grindelwald, depending on the situation.

"That broomstick is a piece of my personal property and you have no right to seek to demand it," she replied cagily, "furthermore, if Hermione had allowed me to continue, I would have added I am having it looked over by a professional as soon as possible."

"Ah, well I suppose that is a not unreasonable attitude to take," he relented, since really there was no way he could supersede that. "I suppose I must merely wish you a Merry Christmas." And with that, he took off.

"Nosy old codger," the ravenette muttered.

"Jasmine!" Hermione exclaimed, scandalised, "that's Dumbledore you're talking about!"

"So?" she shot back, "he's a senile old bastard well past his prime and with a practically unhealthy fascination about my private life." She sighed at the shocked expressions on the Gryffindor's faces. "Safe be said, I have numerous bones to pick with him, but that should not be a topic for today. Shall we just eat some lunch?"

There were so few people within the castle – due to both the holiday, and likely the presence of Dementors surrounding the school grounds – that Dumbledore shoved the House tables against the wall, and transfigured a single long one to fit all the current residents of the school sitting down to a Christmas meal. Even the elusive Trelawney was present, but there was one notable exception, named by Dumbledore stating that Lupin was feeling quite ill, and remarking if Severus had given him his potion.

"That confirms that theory," Jasmine had muttered, and from across the table Hermione met her with sharp eyes.

"What?" Nadia asked from beside the girl.

"Isn't it obvious?" the other Gryffindor responded, and it was Jasmine's turn to look knowingly at her.

Lupin was a werewolf.

And that raised rather a lot of questions.

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Once again, Jasmine found herself waiting behind after a Defence lesson, flicking the door closed with her wand made the Professor notice her still standing there.

"Did you have a question, Miss Potter?" he asked with confusion.

"Several, really," she replied nonchalantly, "I suppose one of them would be how you managed to hide your transformations when at school." The man froze, and looked at her with fearful eyes. "Did you not need the two days either side of the full moon off as well like you do now?"

"How did you work it out?" he asked quietly.

"Well, apart from two separate 'illnesses' around the full moon and the fact that Snape practically wrote it on the blackboard for us when he took your class, it really wasn't difficult. And 'Moony,' not exactly a subtle nickname," she stated.

"You're as sharp as your mother, Miss Potter," he said with a grim, humourless smile.

"Oh, call me Jasmine; had I grown up with my parents, I'm sure we would have known each other much better."

"Yes, I daresay we would," he leaned against the edge of his desk, "and to answer your original question, it is due to the Wolfsbane potion I take, which is a recent invention that leaves me in my right mind when I transform on the full moon, but has side effects."

"If you're trying to sell to me that you're safe to be around children, don't bother, as I don't care in the slightest about your furry little problem," she stated, "it only affects you one day out of thirty, after all." Plus she dealt with far more dangerous werewolves fairly often, seeing as she employed so many.

"Thank-you; it's nice to not to be treated like a monster," he replied with a hesitant smile.

"However," she continued, "that's not to say others feel the same way, and I'm sure plenty of parents would be interested to know of your affliction." His smile vanished. "I'll be blunt; the last time I questioned you about Sirius Black, you lied to me. If you do so again, I will know. So, I ask you again: What do you know about him?" Lupin rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second before saying anything.

"James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius and I were the closest of friends once. We thought nothing could separate us, and it remained that way even through the war as we got out of Hogwarts. We joined Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and fought against the Death Eaters together. I never suspected Black was a traitor; he was the consummate playboy joker, who enjoyed too much drinking and picking up women," his eyes gained a faraway look as he remembered bygone years. "What's strange is that he always seemed to loathe his relatives and their pureblood elitism – to the extent he ran away in fifth year and was taken in by the Potters during the summers until he was of age. I believe the only member of his family he had spoken to in the years before Voldemort's defeat was Andromeda Tonks – and she secreted herself, her husband and her new-born daughter away somewhere once the war began. He always talked about his family with hatred, especially Bellatrix – not least after she supposedly had a hand in killing the McKinnon's, including his ex-girlfriend Mary."

"There's something else – there's nothing bad about sharing all of this, you expressly have a secret you've kept from everyone." She knew he hadn't talked about the passages, and she had now set a few thin collapsing wards too small to notice that would inform her if someone went down into all of the tunnels except the one which seemed to exit on the map by the Whomping Willow – she couldn't figure out quite where it was or how to get near it with the angry tree in the way.

"We…" he sighed, "I suppose you already know about my curse, and the Marauders, you may as well know the rest. In first year, the three of them – primarily Sirius and James – worked out what I was. From then on, they tried to help me out by helping to sneak me to the Shrieking Shack where I stayed during full moons." That was an interesting titbit, but she kept quiet rather than ask how he got to the outskirts of Hogsmeade. "In order to be able to stay with me during my transformation…they decided to become animagi, and succeeded in our second year." Jasmine's eyes widened at the proclamation; not only was that quite illegal to be an unregistered animagus, but to be so at twelve years old? "While in animal form, the wolf had no interest in them, so they stayed with me on the full moons from then on."

"What forms did they have?" she inquired curiously.

"James was a stag, Peter was a rat, and Sirius was a dog," he answered, "we always used to say he looked like a Grim." 'Prongs, Wormtail, Padfoot. That explains the nicknames,' she added silently, and her mind was spinning at this revelation. It explained why he had told no-one; after all it would require revealing his condition.

"Right," she eventually replied, filing away the information to break down at a later date, "was there anything else?"

"I just told you a secret I've kept for decades, and you already know I'm a werewolf, what more is there to tell?" he said tiredly.

"Well, I had theories over how you might have been helping him and got him onto school grounds, but as an animagus I think I can see that he had rather more options," she moved to pick up her bag with all her books in. "Thank-you for the information, sir, and any concerns about your affliction being revealed need not come from me. Good day."

As she walked out of his classroom, he didn't appear particularly consoled.

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"Is there any particular reason the redheaded boy is glaring at you like you're the reincarnation of Hitler?" Jasmine posed curiously to the bushy-haired girl beside her at the front of the History of Magic classroom – they were some of the few who were actually bothering to take notes.

"He's obsessed with the idea that Crookshanks ate his rat," the Gryffindor growled in return. "His incessant annoying comments whenever I'm in the vicinity are getting quite annoying."

"It's what cats do, and there's plenty of others in the tower; I say he should have kept his rat locked up or something," Nadia commented.

"Try telling that to him," Hermione said with a snort, "he hasn't got an ounce of logic in his head, and the emotional range of a teaspoon. He doesn't even care about the damn animal; I've heard him complain about it being a hand-me-down for years."

"The Weasley family hand a lot of things down. It must be an old rat, though; surely it didn't have long for this world anyway?" Jasmine queried.

"Apparently it used to belong to his brother Percy, so it must have been fairly ancient."

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As Jasmine walked into the entry-hall just after lunch, she was greeted by the sight of a middle-aged man arguing with Professor Dumbledore.

"I think you'll find I have an appointment to keep with Miss Potter," he stated with no small hint of annoyance.

"I'm sorry, but such things are not allowed to take place on school grounds during term time, not least on a school day, unless approved by the Headmaster," he chidingly responded, as if dealing with a small child.

"Unless," she declared, moving up behind them, "that appointment is relating to the student in question's safety or of business to do with the DMLE. Naturally, a potentially cursed item is a hazard to my personal safety." She affixed Dumbledore with a steely gaze, "are you really this adamant about your staff examining my broom? Or perhaps about me being unable to fly?"

"Jasmine, I merely have to enforce school rules, regardless of whom has broken them," he replied in his grandfatherly tone.

"As I believe I have mentioned before, Professor, we are not on a first name basis," her piece said, she promptly ignored the man, "Mr Maxwell, I presume?"

"That's right, Oliver Maxwell, at your service," the man gave a slight bow and doffed his bowler hat to reveal mousy brown hair. "I'm terribly sorry about the delay, what with the Christmas holidays and all."

"Not at all," she replied, still completely ignoring the headmaster as she moved past him, "where would you like to do this?"

"The Quidditch pitch would seem appropriate, no?" he stated with a grin.

She nodded at him, and made for the wide doors out into the rare springtime sunshine.

"Thank-you for agreeing to come out, by the way," she said as they walked.

"Oh, don't mention it. My boss all but had a conniption when it became a possibility a broom we'd sent to the Girl-Who-Lived might be cursed," he looked slightly sheepish, "it would be quite bad publicity if such a famous figure as yourself was injured riding one of our brooms not a month after release. And of course, the anonymous transfer was quite fishy as far as paying for it went – you might have been right on the money guessing it was Sirius Black."

"Naturally," she replied as they walked into the main entrance to the pitch, ignoring the stairs leading up into the walls and the doors to the changing rooms on both sides and heading straight to the pitch itself. On the way, Jasmine pulled out her mokeskin pouch from around her neck, "Accio Firebolt." Defying the laws of physics, the long broom flew out of the small pouch to be caught by her deft hand.

"That's an advanced charm for a third year," Maxwell commented.

"I read ahead a lot," she replied, setting the broom upon the turf.

Gaining a professional look in his eyes, the man leaned down and ran his hands along the broom, noting everything about it as he flipped it over and around a few times.

"No physical defects, it's like it just came out of our workshop," he commented before pulling his wand out and hitting it with numerous diagnostic spells, most of which she hadn't heard of. After a minute or so of various responses in the form of smoke or light, he tucked his wand away and drew what looked like an obsidian stick, capped with gold. Running the stick all the way from the handle to the tip of the bristles to the handle again, he shrugged as he put it away. "Well, I've tried everything I know to do," he said, picking up the broom and looking it over with a critical eye, "and without boasting too much, I'd say very few people on this earth could potentially know anything more about it than I do. As far as I can tell, it's clean, and you have a rather generous anonymous fan out there somewhere."

"Well, thank-you, and my apologies for bringing you out here over nothing," she replied as he handed her the broom.

"Oh, don't worry about it. Better a false alarm than you breaking a leg or the like," he gestured at the broom, "since its all working and you haven't had a chance to, why don't you try it out? She's the premier broom on the market, and it's something else to experience, let me tell you that."

She eyed the broom speculatively – she hadn't actually ridden one since Flitwick's challenge guarding the Philosopher's Stone. She was an academic, not a sports nut after all. Still…she could confess to enjoying being on a broom the few brief times she had.

Carefully, she slipped the broom in-between her legs and pushed off from the ground. In an instant, she was gone.

Her feet automatically attached themselves to the rear footrests, and her eyes widened as she experienced the sheer acceleration of the thing. The seats of the stadium whipped past, and before she knew it, she was flying tight loops around the goalposts, banking heavily on each turn with the slightest push of her arms or slip outwards of her foot. The Firebolt took off like a dream, and she did a barrel-roll in mid-air as she twisted away to follow the stands back to the other side to fly inside the middle goalpost, and she could feel the hair streaming out behind her impact briefly upon the metal.

Twisting, she corkscrewed madly upwards in a tight spiral, before slamming herself downwards to stare in wonder at the speed at which the ground rushed up to meet her. At the last possible moment, she pulled the front of the broom back up, and skimmed the grass lightly with the tips of her shoes. In wonderment, she held out a hand to brush against the green blades as they whipped past, smiling at the sheer freedom of being on a broom. She also understood why the Holyhead Harpies were such a good team if the pressure of G-Forces up from the broom on her was any indication; the faster one took a corner, the more painful it would become for a man. She had no such limitation.

Somewhere, from far inside old memories, a line from a film she had once seen a part of flickered to the forefront of her mind: 'Never astride the broom; a witch is always a lady unless circumstances dictate otherwise.'

With a slight smile, she shifted her feet while pulling upwards a bit and pushing upon the handle to stay airborne as she changed her centre of mass. After a few careful movements, she was sitting side saddle upon the broom, still travelling at a fair speed.

With a twist of the handle, she turned to head back to the entranceway, and once she got close, lost a bit of speed and simply hopped off, her knees bending a little to absorb the impulse of impact. As she walked over to the entranceway, she frowned to see not only an astounded Mr Maxwell, but also a group that was recognisably the Ravenclaw Quidditch team in full Quidditch robes.

"I have never seen flying like that," pronounced the captain – a fifth year prefect named Roger Davies. Mutters of a 'Perfect Wronski Feint,' and 'Have you ever seen someone sit sideways on a broom?' only exacerbated her feeling that she had just made an error. "Have you ever tried playing seeker?"

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"I never figured you for an athlete," declared a bemused Hermione as she approached the ravenette on 'their' windowsill. Said girl groaned and put down her copy of a Quidditch rulebook.

"I'm not," she replied, "I just like flying is all. It's not even an athlete's sport, really, there's no real exercise."

"There is for the other six players," the Gryffindor remarked, "they have to do more work than you in some ways. You just need good reflexes and a fast broom."

"There's more to it than that," Jasmine defended, "until I sight the snitch, it's my responsibility to annoy the other team and generally act as a human bludger. I'm not particularly looking forward to that part…"

Hermione, for her part, just laughed.

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"Tell me, Mr Fox, how is your son doing?" The man froze at her question.

"He, he's working at the Ministry, ma'am. He's fine as far as I know…" his fear was palpable.

"Well, he'll be receiving a promotion to another department at some point today. Could you please inform him he has great things ahead of him if he plays his cards right." It was phrased as a command, not as an order.

"Miss Adler, this is my son, I'd rather he not be a part of… all of this."

"Mr Fox; if our employer's plans proceed, he will be the Minister for Magic within a few years. Think on that for a moment if you will, before denying a most gracious offer."

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The Hand of Glory sat beside her emitting soft light from bluebell flames on her bed as Jasmine lay cross-legged upon it examining the Marauder's Map, with her curtains closed obviously. After some reasoning and arguing with the implanted personalities of the Marauders, they had consented to allow her access to look at the inner workings of the map without interference.

Every new thing she found as she moved through layers and layers of inlaid runes made her more astounded that this actually worked. She could see that they had clearly started the foundations fairly early on, as the inner arrays were very crude, getting more complex as they moved outwards. This must have taken the four of them years to get working, and undeniably the end result was impressive, even if the way to get there amounted to hundreds of simple 'programs' to get there. They were wizards, after all, so they didn't know anything about muggle skills in programming which could have vastly improved various aspects of this map.

The part she found most curious, she pondered as she moved the shadowy shapes back into the parchment with a yawn, was that it appeared to be tied into Hogwarts' wards, presumably by a direct connection to the wardstones. How on earth they managed that, she would quite like to know.

Just as she was touching her wand to the map to deactivate it, she paused, frowning as she tried to reconcile what she had just seen. Surely she was tired? That was impossible, there was no way…

She searched the area around where she had seen it, and stared as she beheld the name once again.

Peter Pettigrew.

He was walking the halls of Hogwarts, not that far from the kitchens, the little footsteps pulling the name with them as he moved.

That just wasn't possible. He was a dozen years dead.

Almost without thinking about it, she had summoned her invisibility cloak, grabbed the hand of glory, and ran out of her dorm.

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As she creeped back inside Ravenclaw tower, her heart ceased its restless beating. She had nearly been caught by Snape – which would not have gone down well if she had been – and had stood over where Pettigrew should have been, and saw nothing.

Retreating to her room, she resumed her earlier position and deactivated the map before touching her wand to it.

"How can the map be wrong?" she whispered. Slowly, the response formed.

'Mr Moony is shocked someone would dare to say such a thing.

Mr Prongs would like to add he is offended.

Mr Wormtail would like to clarify the Map is never wrong.

Mr Padfoot would say that the user must be getting it wrong.'

"I saw the name of a man who has been dead for twelve years upon this map," she replied with frustration. The response was simple, and for once wasn't in third person or from each individual Marauder.

'The Map never lies.'

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The celebration after Jasmine's first Quidditch match, which had been against Gryffindor, was quite something. They had been a hundred and thirty points down in the tournament over all, with Slytherin holding the lead. She had caught the snitch only five minutes and one goal – by Gryffindor's well-oiled chaser team – in. That put them twenty points ahead of Slytherin, with them only having one match left to play in the summer term against the snakes.

The idea of Ravenclaw – the academic house that never really fielded many athletes, and only had an average of 3rd or 4th every year – could be in with a chance of the cup apparently was exciting to many of her fellows, and she found herself the centre of attention in a party for the first time in her life. The rest of the team were particularly ecstatic, especially Cho Chang, who preferred to play chaser but had been forced to be the seeker in their first match of the year.

'Then again, perhaps she isn't the most excited of the lot,' Jasmine mused as she watched Roger Davies get up on a table singing an out of key rendition of 'We are the Champions.'

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"Right, I know the last time you were all around for a formal duelling match was with a less than impressive teacher," Lupin stated from his position on the long rectangular stage, "hopefully, today will be a bit more productive, as well as showing me where you stand as far as spells for your OWLs are concerned. Furthermore, we'll be doing this properly. All formal duelling rules apply, and you will be fighting to incapacitation, disarmament or surrender. I do not want to see anything deadly flying around or any dirty play," he eyed the section of the room containing the Slytherins, "but, you need not worry about stray spells when in the audience, as Professor Flitwick and I will be at either end maintaining the shields as well as being there to stop anyone from going too far on their opponent. Do you all understand what is and isn't allowed?"

"Yes, sir," chorused the third years filling the Great Hall.

"Good. Now, you'll all be duelling the person closest to your level according to the notes left to me by Auror Shacklebolt and my own observations this year," he pulled a list from a pocket of his worn robes, "the starting pair will be Jasmine Potter and Susan Bones."

Jasmine gave a speculative look to the redhead, remembering Hermione's frustration at consistently losing the position as best in the year to not just the ravenette, but also the Hufflepuff girl from the other class. Then again, it likely had no small part to do with the fact that Susan Bones was the niece of Amelia Bones – the head of the DMLE – and likely had extra training due to that.

Of course, the other teen was eyeing her in much the same way as they stepped up to the duelling platform – Jasmine at Flitwick's end, while Susan went to Lupin's. She wasn't surprised at the presence of her head of house, since the diminutive quarter-goblin was renowned for being an ex-duelling champion among the Ravenclaws, she had more been surprised that he was absent from Lockhart's previous attempt. Then again, that was probably due to Lockhart himself.

As the pair of teenage girls reached their positions, they bowed to each other, wands flicked out to the side, before pointing them at each other.

"On my mark you will begin," Lupin announced, "ready… fight!"

Bones moved first, firing off a concussion hex, swiftly followed up by three piercers. Jasmine quickly raised a strong shield against the spells, and grinned at her opponent, glad the other girl was about as interested in holding back as she herself was.

She returned fire with two yellow blasting curses, traced behind by a tombstone-grey bone breaker – a spell as borderline grey as its hue suggested. Bones wasn't hit by any of them, but only by bringing up a second shield after quickly spotting the bone breaker. This was going to be a tough fight.

They traded hexes, curses and the occasional jinx for several minutes, both taking risks and dodging rather than blocking or shielding certain spells, and both attempting to outwit the other rather than anything else.

As Jasmine casted a freezing charm across the wooden deck partially turning to quicksand to stop the spread, she had an idea, and quickly formulated the moves in her head before casting an 'Aguamenti' at the floor halfway between them and pushing it towards Susan with the occasional spell. When the water had soaked the wood beneath the girl, she smiled and pointed her wand at where the water began.

"Glacius!" she incanted, flicking her wand to send the white spell at the damp wood and making a film of ice swiftly move forth to cover the wood. Bones' hastily cast heating charm stopped the ice before it could reach her, and turned it all back to water, but her distraction had allowed Jasmine time to prepare the real sucker punch. The spell she had drawn the energy for snapped from her wand in a bolt of elemental lightning, immediately conducting along the path of the water to a wide-eyed redhead.

In an almost comical way, the girl was blasted in a backflip off the stage, swiftly being caught by Lupin's spell to stop her falling to the ground.

"Very well done, the pair of you," he announced as he set her safely upon the ground and Jasmine jumped off the platform, "though I did see quite a lot of spells that were definitely…extracurricular." That was one word for the spells they had been using – which were more likely to be at a NEWT level, and could quite possibly be seen coming from the wand of a hit wizard, if not an Auror. She supposed that the reason he hadn't stopped the match was that they weren't technically lethal or dark, and that they were both capable of dealing with the more powerful spells.

"Good match," Jasmine stated as she held out a hand to the Bones scion. The redhead looked at her strangely before shaking.

"Good match," she echoed, before heading over to her fellow Hufflepuffs.

Equally, Jasmine settled back to watch Hermione face off against Hannah Abbott – another Hufflepuff, and Bones' best friend. From the looks of the match, Abbott had received much the same training as Susan, most likely from her, but Hermione was no slouch either, albeit using different methods. The bushy-haired girl favoured transfiguration, affecting the environment around her competitor a lot, as well as using odd jinxes at a strange time. A well timed tooth-growing jinx more often used in a schoolyard made the blonde's front teeth unnaturally long, and limited how well she could say a spell's incantation – limiting the power of them. A colour changing charm of all things visibly turned the girl's eyes green all over, bewildering the teenager.

Hermione's final move was a complex water-to-stone transfiguration often used by builders, and she twisted the ambient water vapour in the air into stone cat statues which she then animated to attacking Hannah. As the girl attempted to deal with the beasts harassing her, Hermione revealed her master stroke.

"Expelliarmus," she incanted, and Abbott looked up but did nothing as the red spell hit her squarely in the chest and she lost her wand. Then Jasmine understood the colour changing charm – it acted as a filter on her eyes, which would specifically block crimson light like the disarming spell. A clever little application of relatively simple physics.

As the girl stepped down off of the stage and reversed her spells' effects on her blonde counterpart, Jasmine was already working out how she could put such ideas into her own strategy in future.

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It was a Sunday evening near the end of term that Jasmine was in the small corridor above the courtyard looking at the Marauder's map for Hermione and Nadia. She had been hoping to talk to them and give them a slightly smug 'bad luck,' over Ravenclaw's hard-won victory over Slytherin in the Quidditch match that morning. They had just pipped Gryffindor at the post for the cup, by a measly ten points, but it was a win none-the-less, and Ravenclaw's first in more than a decade.

Her slight smile as she searched the map dropped as she saw four names gathered outside, with a fifth approaching from some distance away. As she took in the sight, gears turned in her head and information clicked into place forming a perfect sequence of revelations that hit her one-by-one with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast.

"Oh, hell," she muttered, before taking off at a breakneck pace.

The four gathered were Hermione Granger, Nadia Longbottom, Ronald Weasley, and Peter Pettigrew. And the one sneaking up on them through the foliage was one Sirius Black.

A/N: Calling it there at just over six thousand words – I like to keep my average per chapter around five. Next chapter should see the end of Third year – finally – and movement on into the summer and resolution of the Sirius Black issue. I'm currently liking this update schedule, so chapters will be going out on a Monday from here on out (or should be, hopefully) as it means I can write them over the weekend and then look-over and spell-check them with a fresh mind on Monday.

Also, there are numerous references that managed to work their way into this chapter. I'll be impressed if anyone gets all of them.