Patricia De'Silver was Laying on her bed idly doodling on a piece of
Parchment wishing she could have been there in time to save her cousin,
instead of arriving just too late and falling to her knee's crying out in
anger and grief.
Remus Lupin had taken her back to school along with her sister.
A knock on her door awoke her from her daydreams
"Come in" She called weakly
A blonde haired girl with a concerned expression on her face came in and
sat down on the end of Patricia's bed
"Hi Riz" Patricia looked up from her parchment only long enough to see who
it was who'd come in
"Pat, I know you're upset about Sirius, but life goes on. Me, Tish and
Laura are going to Diagon Alley, wanna come?" Rizwana asked smiling at
Patricia when she looked up again, she thought for a moment then spoke in a
voice that said she was fed up with life
"Yeah alright" Then her voice changed to one that Rizwana was used to "You
never know, it might even take my mind off Sirius"
Rizwana was so shocked she fell off Patricia's bed with a thump; she got up
without complaint and just looked at Patricia, wide-eyed
"Honest Riz, I'll come, just let me get some sock's and shoes on and I'll
be with you"
She did just that and a minute later was looking at Mortisha and Laura
accompanied by an older witch with bubble gum pink hair
"Patricia this is Tonks, her mother was Sirius' cousin just like you" Laura
said pushing her glasses up her nose to stop them falling off
"Nice to meet you Tonks, so why did you come then?" Patricia greeted her
with a smile that made Mortisha nearly choke on the drink she was
finishing, Patricia hadn't smiled since the day Sirius had died.
"I came over to see if you wanted someone other than you're parent's and
sister to speak to, someone else related to Sirius" Tonks explained
"Oh right, well, shall we go?" Patricia said opening the front door and
motioning to everyone to go
***
"So how well did you know Sirius?"
They where sitting outside an Ice-cream parlour eating Ice-cream sundae's
"Well I was only one or two when he was put in Azkaban, but I can remember
some of his visit's like they where yesterday," Patricia said after
thinking for a while
"Tonks, we bought Patricia to Diagon Alley to try and make her forget about
how much she misses Sirius, I know you're only trying to help but it might
be making thing's worse" Rizwana interrupted the conversation
"Sorry, I forgot" Tonks replied looking sheepish
"Come on I need a new quill and my robes are at least two inches too short
now" Mortisha exclaimed getting up and starting to walk away
"Just a moment Tish" Rizwana called her back "Are we still doing our
Halloween trick this year?"
"What's that?" Tonks asked with a look of great interest on her face
"Me, Riz, Ari and Sarah dress up as Sirius and his gang from school and go
around seeing who recognises us, so far there's been Snivvelus, oh sorry
Professor Snape, Remus Lupin, back in third year, and did Dumbledore
recognise us each year? As Sirius and that lot I mean?"
"Yeah he did, he nearly freaked when he saw you, I hate my part though,
Pettigrew, I can't avoid it, I chose him, hey he's got the same hair colour
as me, so it fit"
"James is easy, just look at Harry change the eye's to hazel, take the scar
away and there you are, James Potter, we scared Harry too didn't we? He
thought he was looking in a mirror when he looked at Ari. He whined a bit
last year actually, said we where being cruel to him, well he said I was,
dressing up as Sirius all the time, he thinks he's the only one who misses
him, Harry's seen him in the past year's I haven't, all I've had is the
photo's I've had since I left for Hogwarts and the newspaper cutting I cut
out. The last time I actually SAW Sirius was the day he died, and that
wasn't exactly the way I wanted to see him"
"Ok Patricia calm down" Rizwana patted her on the shoulder and Patricia
went all quiet again "Oh damn there's Mouseboy" Rizwana shrieked
"EEK DUCK" Laura squealed as her, Riz and Tish ducked under the table,
closely followed by Tonks, Patricia just sat there fiddling with her spoon
in the bottom of her glass, she didn't even notice when Malfoy came up and
rapped on the table
"What are YOU looking at?" He sneered at her
She looked up and seemed surprised to see her worst enemy staring her in
the face "Where d'you come from?" she asked
Malfoy was dumbstruck; he'd been expecting her to blow her top
"Over there" He pointed in the direction he'd come
"Why not go back THERE then?" Patricia sneered at him, making him step back
in surprise
"See you at school, if you go back there that is"
"Yeah, not if I see YOU first"
He walked away muttering to himself
***
Half an hour later Tonks was rushing the group to the Leaky cauldron, where
they where surprised to see.
"Pro.Rem.Pro.Lupin?" Patricia stuttered, she hadn't expected to see him
there
Lupin jumped a foot in the air, and looked around in surprise, he'd been in
deep conversation with a red headed man Patricia didn't recognise
"Oh sorry it's you, sit down a moment, Tonks I told you to be here ten
minute's ago"
"We ran into some trouble with a particular boy, and a particularly hard
choice of whether to get a black quill or a white one" Tonks said glancing
behind her at Laura who was hiding
"OH been shopping then have you ladies?"
"Yes" They said in unison
"This is Mr Weasley, you know his son's Ron, Fred and George and his
daughter Ginny"
"Nice to meet you sir" Patricia smiled and greeted him "Patricia De'Silver,
I'm in the same year as."
"Ron, yes he's told me all about you and you're friend's and what you do
for Halloween" He smiled brightly and chuckled
"And this is, Mortisha De'Silver, she's in Ginny's year, Rizwana Trulove,
she's in Ron's year too, and, stop hiding behind Tonks." He said trying to
pull Laura out from behind Tonks, and failing miserably "We won't hurt you,
oh never mind, that's Laura Rosecroft hiding behind Tonks there, she's also
in Ginny's year"
"Nice to meet you" Rizwana said weakly, she wasn't too good with formal
introduction's
Mortisha just smiled weakly and Laura just carried on hiding behind Tonks
"Laura, it's only Ginny's dad, stop hiding, oh alright then Ginny's dad and
professor Lupin" Mortisha said trying to cajole Laura out from her hiding
place
"I'll speak to you later Remus" Mr Weasley said getting to his feet and
walking away
"Alright Arthur, speak to you later, right, sit down all of you" He got up
and pulled up two more chair's for Laura and Tonks and went over to the bar
to order drink's. He came back with six bottle's of Butter Beer, set them
down on the table and resumed his seat by the window
"Right Patricia this is mainly for you and Tish, the only reason Riz and
Laura had to come was so you'd come out of the house, and they wanted to
come too." He stopped at the look Patricia gave Rizwana
"You knew about this?" she asked rather disgruntled
"Well in a way, sorry Patricia it was supposed to be a surprise"
"Don't worry about it" Patricia disregarded the matter after thinking about
the circumstance's "Carry on"
She added to Lupin, not sure whether or not she should call him, Professor,
Sir or Remus
"Well Sirius wanted to give this to you, but he never got the chance so I'm
giving him to you" He pulled a black kitten from his pocket and handed it
to Patricia
"Thank you" Patricia's mind was racing So he hadn't forgotten me after
all, he wanted to give this kitten to me? That's so sweet, Sirius? No what
can I call him? Sirius would make sense but then everybody would know, I'll
have to think about this Her thought's where interrupted by an excited
squeal from her sister. Lupin had just produced a box from his pocket,
containing two gold chains, one with a pendant shaped like the Gryffindor
crest and the other like the Slytherin. He gave the Slytherin one to
Patricia and the Gryffindor one to Tish. Patricia studied it for a moment,
then turned it over and saw with shock four initials and a short message:
P.D. S.B.
Always remember
When she looked up she saw Lupin looking at her with a smile on his face
that said, don't cry, "Sirius wanted to give you both something like that
but he never got the chance obviously, so I bought those for you, on his
behalf"
"Thank you Remus" Patricia said getting the better of herself, and calling
him by his first name. Lupin just chuckled
"Yes I suppose it must have been hard in you're third year" Patricia
blushed and looked down again "Don't worry about it Patricia, I'm not a
teacher anymore, call me what you want"
Patricia looked up and nodded
"Now that's over with, I have one more thing I need to tell you two, when
you go back to school in September, if you ever meet Harry in the
corridor's treat him the same as you would Rizwana or Laura, well treat him
as an acquaintance, he's suffering the same grief as you are."
"But he whine's so much more than he need's to" Mortisha complained
truthfully
"Yes he does whine a bit more than necessary but you just have to ignore
that, it's just the way he is I'm afraid"
They talked till it was getting dark and Lupin looked at his watch and
nearly cursed aloud
"Stupid me, I'll walk you home, you should have been there at least half an
hour ago"
On the way back to Patricia's house Lupin and Tonks walked just ahead of
the other's discussing how they could keep in touch with Patricia without
Harry finding out, they finally settled on Owl's it was harder to pinpoint
where they had come from.
Tonks and Lupin waved goodbye to the group from the gate, as Patricia
unlocked the door, once inside they where greeted by two white cats
"Mum, Dad we're home" When she got no answer she went into the kitchen to
find her mother sitting alone.
