Beta'd by the marvelous Mirabelle P

Flora had never spent so much time in silence as she had for the last few days. Her newfound drive to discover what Draco was hiding had become a fulltime occupation. At first she'd envisioned the task would involve stealthily observing him talking to shifty or dangerous people, sending post in a secretive manner or even catching him tending an illicit crop of some non-tradable plant he was cultivating in the forest. Sadly, anything that dramatic was yet to occur. So far, 'Operation Suspiciousness' as she had dubbed it because 'Operation Follow Draco Around' just sounded a bit sad, had mostly consisted of lurking around corners as Draco walked from class to class, or dawdling in the Entrance Hall to find out which direction he was heading in after lunch. Very dull. Luckily her two friends were willing to keep her company so while it was boring, it wasn't lonely. Something Draco most certainly was – not that loneliness could be considered suspicious, really.

Flora was so grateful for their presence that she had even resisted teasing Beth about her motivation to give up so much of her free time to tail Draco; both Flora and Greta were certain that Beth fancied Flora's cousin. She was always quick to defend Draco, but suddenly quiet whenever he stopped to talk to Flora. Greta on the other hand seemed to quite enjoy the idea of sneaking around like detectives. She was determined they would solve the mystery of Draco's odd behaviour. Greta had already compared their sleuthing to her favourite series of books. "Just like Nancy!" she'd exclaimed excitedly when Flora had suggested they put their minds to the situation.

But it was of course at a moment when Flora was without the enthusiastic Greta or enamoured Beth that Draco finally did something else suspicious. On their way back from poking around the dungeon passageways trying to find the Slytherin common room, Flora had detoured to the library alone to drop off a useless book on tracking spells she'd borrowed.

She was just passing the doorway to the spiral staircase that led up to the owlery when Draco came around the corner at the far end of the corridor. He was alone - as usual - and walking quickly. Flora hesitated for a moment, not sure if she should hide and follow him or just say hello and pretend to carry on. But the decision was taken out of her hands when her cousin said, "I feel like you're everywhere at the moment Florie."

"Don't call me that," Flora said at once, in an automatic reaction as she stepped away from the shadowed wall so he could see her properly. The nickname had been fine when she was five, but she was eleven – practically an adult! – and adults weren't called by their childhood nicknames… well, adults other than her father, godfather and Uncle James, but her mum and Aunty Lily said their husbands were still like children anyway.

"Sorry Lady Black," Draco said snarkily as he doffed an imaginary hat.

"What's up your nose?" Flora snapped. "I was just on my way to Gryffindor tower, I've been to the library, I haven't done anything to you."

"And I'm just posting a letter," Draco replied, waving a small pale envelope that he'd been holding in his hand, concealed by his loose robe sleeve. "No reason for you to sneak around to watch. I'm allowed to post letters."

"Who are you writing to?" Flora asked, choosing to ignore the fact that she and her friends must be very poor detectives if Draco had noticed them already.

"None of your sticky-beaking business," Draco replied loftily, tucking the letter away before Flora could get a look at the recipient's name.

Abandoning all pretence Flora asked, "If you're not up to something why can't I know who it's to?"

"Because it's private Nosey-Rosie." Flora narrowed her eyes stubbornly, despite wanting to giggle at Draco's silly turn of phrase. Draco looked longingly up the stairs to the owlery – he was obviously wishing he'd not picked a fight. However, when he looked back at Flora his expression gave her no clue as to what he was thinking. "Fine," he said eventually, with a convincing air of defeat, "it's to my long-distance girlfriend."

Flora scoffed at once. "You don't have a long-distance girlfriend, you're not old enough." Draco seemed offended and opened his mouth to argue but Flora added, "Aunt Cissa wouldn't let you."

"She doesn't know," Draco said, leaning in and whispering conspiringly, "It's a secret romance."

After a moment of consideration, wherein Flora found herself distracted by the oddly exciting idea of clandestine love, she said mulishly, "You're full of it."

Draco shrugged. "You can think what you like then, Florie." And he turned and began to climb the stairs.

Flora scowled after him. "Don't be a dickhead," she said angrily.

Her cousin didn't stop, he just batted a dismissive hand over his shoulder at her. "Go to bed – firsties aren't allowed out after seven."

He really didn't have to be so rude, Flora grumbled internally. And what if this letter he was sending was something to do with the Suspiciousness? If he really did have a girlfriend far away somewhere Flora would be quite happy for him, at least that would mean he wasn't completely alone, but she doubted it. When could he have even met a foreign girl? She supposed Grimmauld Place did hold dinner parties and galas – perhaps the daughter of some continental acquaintance had taken a liking to him? It dawned on Flora that either way, girlfriend or not, her cutting suggestion that he couldn't have one was very mean of her. She really did love her cousin even if he was a secretive arse at the moment, and the whole point of her investigation was to help him so he wouldn't be so lonely. Fighting with Draco really didn't seem like the best way to find out what was behind his odd behaviour either.

In a snap decision Flora took off up the stairs to the owlery, not to snoop but to apologise.

Flora had never been to the owlery at night time. The winding staircase up to it was lit by torches in brackets like the rest of the castle, each one leaving a shadowed imprint in her eye as she climbed the few steps of darkness between the pools of flickering light. The landing at the top of the stairs was dim, the light from the stairwell barely reached it but when she pushed the door to the circular tower room open her torch-dazzled eyes could see nothing but a wall of black night. The room was windy due to its unglazed windows, and despite the owlish odour that lingered, the strong, cold evergreen-scented breeze and complete darkness gave the momentary impression that she had stepped off the staircase into nothingness. Flora blinked several times and soon the long casement windows were distinguishable – or rather the star-dotted sky beyond them was.

She could hear Draco speaking quietly. His back was to her, the bluish night just touching his hair and pale skin. His robes were swallowed by the darkness of the thick stone inside the tower. There was a tiny little owl perched on his finger, its overlarge eyes glinted rather eerily – he was so focused on it he hadn't even noticed her entrance. "Go straight to the cell," Draco was saying, "stay hidden, the guards might be stopping his post but they can't stop you if they don't know you're there." The owl cooed and flapped its little wings once. Draco held out an owl-treat and the bird nipped it in its hooked beak. "Safe journey," Draco said earnestly, and the tiny bird hooted and took off, soaring quickly into the night.

Flora was frozen by the door. She was completely unsure of the best course of action, because this seemed very serious. She suddenly felt foolish for her desire to catch Draco in the act of something sneaky. Now she didn't want him to know that she had followed him so she stayed silent and Draco hunched against the stone of the window ledge to watch the owl zoom away. Flora dithered for a moment longer before taking a careful step back out of the room. She let the door close softly and then crept back down the stairs as fast as she could go without making too much noise.

There was only one person Draco could be communicating with that lived in a guarded cell. His convicted Death Eater of a father.

As far as Flora knew Draco had only met Lucius a handful of times, all closely watched by guards and Narcissa. She wasn't aware that they were in contact via mail, and she didn't think anyone else in the family knew either. Flora also thought that with all the effort Granddad Pollux had gone too to distance his family from the "unpleasantness a while back" (as he always referred to the war her parents had fought in) he would be very displeased to learn of his Great Grandson's ongoing unsupervised correspondence.

Wednesday evening found Sirius sitting in his favourite chair in his living room and holding what he considered to be a very well earned glass of Ogden's. It had been a trying day. Not only was he struggling with the Wolfsbane case more than any other criminal investigation he'd lead in his career, but to add insult to injury his school-boy nemesis had been sneering at him through the whole process. Sirius thought he was to be commended for his decorum so far (excusing exploding potions ingredients, which he only laughed about and didn't actually cause, bloody Prongs) but no amount of walking stick waving from Moody, or frustrated tutting from Frank was going to keep Sirius's inner sixteen-year-old restrained if he had to put up with Snape's disdainfully smug sniffs for much longer.

Severus Snape was a thoroughly unpleasant individual to deal with, even when you didn't have two decades of mutual hatred simmering away beneath you. Sirius and Frank had questioned both Snape and Madam Pomfrey this afternoon, and while Poppy had been most agreeable, if not impatient to get back to work, Snape seemed to relish the situation. Sirius had expected the Potions Master to be rude and snide as usual – and he was – but he was also undeniably smug that the Aurors, and Sirius in particular, had no evidence against him, or anyone for that matter, or really any clue as to why Remus had been unaffected by his potion.

Sirius took a large gulp from his glass, savouring the way the whiskey seemed to burn his annoyance at Snape out of him with each swallow. Hermione sat with her feet tucked up on the window seat across the room, she was reading – for a change – and the glass of Ogden's that Sirius had poured her – so as to not be drinking alone, and therefore have a problem – was untouched on the table next to her.

Sirius didn't want to dwell on Snape, he didn't want to feel like the prick had driven him to drink. He looked around the room, trying to find something to focus on. It was so neat and ordered, one of the many changes that came with his daughter's absence: there was no well-thumbed issue of Teen Sorceress left open in the middle of the floor, forgotten mid-read when the floo buzzed or the telephone rang. No scraps of parchment littering the coffee table after a marathon letter exchange with Beth Longbottom. The floo powder pot was on the mantle and still full to the brim, Sirius hadn't had to refill it in weeks – it wasn't only lack of use, Flora had a habit of leaving it on the edge of the hearth, right where Sirius would knock it over when went to prop his feet up after work. He was cross with her every time, but now the sight of the brim-full, correctly placed pot left an uncomfortable little hollow in his stomach.

"It's so quiet without Flora," Sirius said, thinking out loud just to fill the eerie stillness the house seemed to hold now that it was missing its most energetic member.

Hermione looked up from her book. "I suppose," she said, grasping the heaviness of his off-hand remark easily. She looked up at the ceiling as though she could see through it to the floor above, directly into Flora's unnaturally tidy and vacant bedroom. "I won't pretend that I miss the endless background of her wireless though." A guilty smile touched her face as she slotted her bookmark into her book.

"No," Sirius agreed, and it was true, having some peace and quiet was truly wonderful, but the Christmas holidays never seemed to get any closer.

Hermione had definitely sensed his sudden change in mood. She put her novel aside and picked up her glass, holding it out as if to clink Sirius's even though they were sitting far too far apart. "Only six weeks to go," she murmured, then she smiled again, "I'm surprised at you – I thought I'd have an earful of whinging about Snape this evening. I realise you've been trying your best to be civil but I imagine he's not the easiest interviewee."

"I'm glad you at least don't think I'm completely to blame for the way he is," Sirius sighed at once, glad to have an excuse to talk about it – he'd been trying very hard to keep his intolerance of Snape to himself as much as possible. "Frank acts like I cause every single little snip and sneer that Snape directs at us."

"Well," Hermione said, the old asperity at the first sign of Snape-whinging creeping into her voice despite her solicitousness, "you are at fault in a way, if you'd been nicer to him at school…"

"He was a sullen little prick with or without me," Sirius declared firmly. "All kids are idiots, you can't condemn me for that."

"You forget who you're speaking to," Hermione smiled ruefully. "Sometimes I think I was just born a grown up – there was never a more responsible eleven year old." Sirius grinned, she had a point. "So," Hermione continued, her face relaxing after a sip from her whiskey, "go on, how was the interview? There must be something to tell."

"Nothing good," Sirius said regretfully. "Well, nothing good for Remus. Snape was his usual unhelpful self but even he admitted he can't find any concrete reason for the potion to be faulty. He requested the cups Madam Pomfrey used, so that he can test them, but they've already been cleaned so I'm not getting my hopes up."

"Does that–" Hermione began, giving Sirius a cautiously concerned look, but then she shook her head minutely and said, "No, never mind."

"What?" he asked immediately, hoping she'd thought of a way to incriminate Snape that he had missed, or really, any clue at all.

"Well, now I'm not accusing," Hermione said uncomfortably, shifting a little on the window seat as her eyebrows drew in anxiously, "but Madam Pomfrey would have cleaned the cups. She also measured out the dosages alone, and performed the first examinations on Remus when whatever it was may have still been present in him… Has someone spoken to her, thoroughly?"

"You're lucky Moony isn't here, he'd bite your head off for that," Sirius said, though he too had been unable to ignore the obvious link. He was yet to broach the subject with Remus however, because he was unwilling to argue with his old friend. "Frank and I were talking about it today actually," Sirius told Hermione. "He's going to have a poke into her recent dealing with people, check her post, that sort of thing. I can't see her trying to hurt Remus, let alone all the children that could have been attacked. But you just never know – blackmail, debt, love, if she's got herself caught up in something, she may have felt like she didn't have a choice."

Sirius had wondered more than once if this was the reason he kept drawing blanks on this case, if this was why he couldn't see past Snape's natural villainous aura. Because the only person who had real opportunity to tamper with the potion was the most unlikely.

When Moody had first assigned Sirius and Frank to the case, he'd been concerned that Sirius's friendship with Remus would affect his work. But so far Sirius had managed to assuage his boss's worry with Longbottom-standard professionalism, he hadn't even hexed Snape once for Circe's sake. However… what Moody would say about Sirius's apparent loyalty to his old school medi-witch he fairly dreaded to imagine. It was only due to his friendship with Remus that he cared about the Matron though, so he supposed Moody had been right to worry. But Madam Pomfrey had nursed Remus back to health so many times, had always been so kind and patient with him, and had never dobbed Sirius or James in for visiting their recovering friend in hospital outside curfew. She also healed their multiple Animagi-related mishaps with no more than a bland "Of course you did" when they told her some farfetched tale of how they'd managed to grow paws instead of hands, or an antler from the middle of their forehead. Just thinking about that made Sirius want to giggle – he had given James shit for weeks after that one, insisting that his inner animal was a deformed unicorn. How could someone so gentle natured and so concerned about the welfare of the students of Hogwarts possibly be responsible for endangering them all?

"It would hurt Remus so badly if it was her, no matter the reason," Hermione said, following Sirius's line of thought.

"Yes it would," he agreed, "but we have to check, it would be negligent not to."

For the second time that week Sirius felt the odd sensation of wanting to find innocence rather than guilt when investigating. It was strange to be looking for reasons not to accuse a suspect… strange and probably unwise, if not leaning toward actual corruption.

Sometimes Sirius wished he was able to detach himself from everything but work, like Frank or Moody – though in Moody's case it was more like the opposite, he sporadically re-attached himself to his personal life, just long enough to retain a modicum of sanity.

Ironically, Moody's sanity came in the form of a monthly correspondence with his old friend, and Sirius's mother-in-law Frederica Fehr. Hermione often teased her adoptive mother that she was having a very slow moving and parchment based affair with the semi-retired Head Auror – something both parties denied, but Moody was noticeably more cheerful on days when he received post from Switzerland. Cheerful being a relative term of course, really he just wore a less dour scowl and showed more cane-restraint with the trainees.

Flirtatious letters aside, Alastor Moody and Frank, and even Tonks, rarely struggled to keep their personal relationships separate from work. But Sirius had always been a bit more about following his instincts rather than the strict litany of facts. However, dealing with his best friend as a target and victim, not to mention two family members and a woman he'd trusted for twenty years on the suspect list was starting to look like his undoing. Or perhaps just the thing that would finally drive him to alcoholism, now that he wasn't allowed to smoke anymore. The lectures from Flora really weren't worth it, even if he did miss his lovely fags terribly at moments like this.

He eyed his nearly empty glass, glaring balefully at the two ice cubes he'd dropped in. If it weren't for them he'd still have a half-inch of whiskey left. Hermione was tapping her fingertips on her knee in a silent rolling drum as she stared out the dark window into the front garden, obviously still pondering Remus's predicament in a way that only she could.

Sirius reached out to the little side table where the crystal decanter his grandfather had given him for his thirtieth birthday sat. He sloshed a bit more Ogden's in his glass, then replaced the opal set stopper and put the heavy bottle back on the table. He'd decided he might as well get all his questionable actions out in the open. Namely his reaction to the odd night time meeting he'd had with Draco. Sirius slurped a large mouthful from his glass for confession-courage – Hermione wasn't likely to be very understanding when it came to exploiting his position and destroying evidence. He sighed as the whiskey travelled down his throat, dulling his self-disappointment as it went.

"Has Flora said anything to you about Draco lately?" Sirius began reluctantly, wanting to ease into the subject before Hermione started telling him off.

Hermione was surprisingly guarded in her reply. "Why do you ask that?" Her eyes were focused on a loose string on her fluffy slipper, she pinched it tight between thumb and index finger and broke it off. "She owled me at work today, asking about him. Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"She did?" Sirius queried, "I'm not sure if he's in trouble or not…" he paused, thinking that it was a bit out of the ordinary for Flora to write to Hermione at the Ministry. "Why didn't Flora just send her letter to us at home?"

Hermione seemed to be examining her slippers for further loose strings, she spoke to them rather than Sirius. "Well… she thought it best not to mention it to you just yet."

"Oh," Sirius murmured, surprised at how much it hurt to know his daughter didn't want to talk to him. This was the first time he was aware of such a wish, for her to speak to her mother only. Was it just the beginning? Dads were hardly the first port of call for girls on some more private matters, but was he going to be second choice for everything now?

"Oh don't look like that," Hermione said, dismissing his burgeoning panic with a look that told Sirius she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Flora thinks Draco is having a hard time, or has got himself involved in something he shouldn't be. She thinks you'll confront him about it rather than give her advice."

"Normally I'd say that would be the simplest way to deal with it," Sirius said, and Hermione murmured something to herself about always going off half-cocked. "But actually," he continued, ignoring his wife, "I completely agree with her. Draco was acting very strangely on Monday night – he was in the hospital wing really late, I only knew he was there because he accidently knocked over some bottles in the storage cupboard."

"What was he doing?" Hermione asked, looking very concerned. "Stealing?"

"I think so," Sirius agreed. "It's the only thing I can think of."

"What was missing?" Hermione asked at once. Sirius was not surprised that she had drawn the need for confession from him so quickly.

Sirius grimaced. "I'm an idiot," he said, and he believed it. Relying on gut instinct was one thing, but his thoughtless automatic action to protect Draco was far beyond excusable carelessness. "I panicked that he would be accused of being involved with the Wolfsbane case so I vanished the mess before Madam Pomfrey could see it, but now… I mean what if it is him? I might've destroyed evidence."

Sirius was completely taken aback not to have this statement met with immediate and thorough indignation at the possible perversion of justice. Instead she shook her head, almost as if she was amused. "When in doubt blame Malfoy," Hermione said, looking nostalgic. "You sound like my Harry," she explained. Her voice trembled on her old friend's name but she managed a tiny wavering smile before hiding behind a large gulp from her glass of whiskey. Sirius wondered if his wife would ever be able to speak of the boys she left behind without pain. He supposed not. She'd made as much peace as she could with what she had done, and most of the time was able to see it as payment for this very happy world she had created but he was sure that she thought about her first life far more than she let on.

"I've been thinking about parallels," she said after a while, during which Sirius had dunk his way to within one mouthful of his second empty glass.

"Worlds?" Sirius asked, tentatively, wanting to return to the topic of his daughter's secretiveness, and avoid a depressing discussion about decade-old abandonment and guilt.

"No, not really – more like the things that seem to happen no matter what. This year was probably the most important in my school life. You arrived giving Harry a father once he knew your true story – I'm sure he'd count that as pretty high on his list of memorable moments in his life. He learnt so much about James, I think he felt both more and less like an orphan. Knowing the parents that he lost…"

Sirius was a little stunned by this idea, he'd always thought of his and Harry's brief relationship in Hermione's past as nothing but good for the boy. It had never occurred to him that the more Harry knew, the more he would grieve. Sirius had thought many times that the version of himself that had lost James would find knowing Harry in equal parts thrilling and gut-wrenching. He wasn't sure why he'd never expected that Harry would have felt the same. To distract himself from that uncomfortable realisation, Sirius forced himself to consider what Hermione was actually trying to say to him. "How does that affect this year though?" he asked, "Our Harry has known me forever."

"Yes, but other important things happened that year too," Hermione said ponderously.

Sirius paid more attention than he usually would to one of her many theories. It was the only way to stop himself dwelling on the disheartening nature of the topic.

"Wormtail getting away and helping Riddle return probably being the most critical." Hermione continued, "That one little event was the catalyst for the second war, the biggest social change for decades." Her voice was becoming increasingly academically enthusiastic as she spoke, leaving the sombre mood of moments ago behind. "I wondered if somehow this stuff with Remus is similar, that there are specific timeframes in history where change must occur, as though progression is predestined but the tone of that progression is up to us…"

Sirius knew that he really should expect this sort of thing from Hermione now and again, she was after all cleverer than anyone he'd ever met, but it still took him by surprise. Most people mulled over problems or an idea, his wife mulled over the universe. His misgivings about expressing a point of view on the topic must have been obvious because Hermione lifted her glass at him again. "Never mind, drink up," she said. "There are better ways to enjoy our childfree house than talking about work or my farfetched inter-dimensional theories."

"Ha," Sirius couldn't help but grin as he followed orders very willingly. "I should get you drunk more often."

"Please, I'm not drunk, I just can't stand to look at your dejected face any longer." She stood up and stretched, "I know two ways guaranteed to cheer you up, and since I couldn't bake you blue macaroons if my life depended on it, you'll have to settle for the other." She finished her sentence with a decidedly saucy smirk, and his heart lightened rapidly as she pulled him by the hand out of his chair and toward the stairs. She was right – as usual. Distraction from circular and unproductive worrying was definitely in order.

A/N: I bet you all thought I'd abandoned this... nope! Just summer getting in the way of ficcing.

Thanks for reading, please review!

Mrs J xx