Authors Notes: So, um, yes -long time no update. It's not like anybody is reading this, but i like writing it so :P
Review Thank Yous-
Darienetta Stoke: Dari, just remember i'm a very busy girl! I got my non-calc math gcse on the 11th!
Please R/R! :)
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Chapter Seven
When the moon was waning and the entire Gryffindor Tower existed in the blissful hour or two when everybody residing inside was asleep, Harry tossed and turned and twisted violently in his four-poster bed, trapped inside a nightmare.
With a start he awoke, sweating and shivering, his breath coming in short gasps.
They were getting better, as far as his nightmares went. He hadn't awoken to screams, only to discover they were his own, and from the snores that filled the room, he hadn't yelled out during said nightmare either.
On his rating, it equalled about a five out of ten.
Clambering out of bed and putting on a tee shirt and his glasses, Harry mused that it probably didn't bode well for his sanity that he rated his nightmares, and that at the beginning of the summer, when everything was so fresh and raw, anytime he finally gave in to his exhausted body's order for sleep, the ensuing nightmares rated twelve.
Harry rubbed his scar absently; the now constant ache was a background irritation that he could more than live with, but it was still annoying and a constant reminder that the entire Wizarding community was in dire danger.
*****
Orion awoke entangled in sheets and upside down, and being half asleep and still not quite thinking, she rolled over fully intending to have just another five minutes in the comfort of her bed, but instead promptly landed with a 'thump!' on the floor.
A head full of very bushy hair that defied gravity stuck out from another bed, "Are you alright?"
It was Hermione.
"Yeah," she struggled out of her entangled mess, glaring at the offending items, and muttered, "I've really got to stop doing that."
Hermione disappeared for a minute then reappeared dressed for the school day; now completely awake, thanks to the tumble, Orion mused that either she was very fast changing or was already doing so, and followed the example of getting dressed.
The painful sound of tearing and sleepy chatter greeted her when she came out again, the sources: Hermione was brushing her hair, and the talking was from the chatterboxes of the class.
"Having a hard time there, Hermione?"
She grunted in reply and tore the brush out in disgust.
"Every morning it's like this!"
Orion laughed and began her own unpleasant hair ordeal -she's forgotten to plait it last night, and now there were some very nasty knots that wouldn't have been much of a problem, had her hair been much shorter than it was. It was these times that she seriously considered cutting it short. Knowing, however, that she would regret it if she did, Orion opted for option B.
"Anyone want to come to the bathroom with me? I've got to sort out these tangles, and I really don't want to deal with pain this early in the morning since we've got Snape first."
Lavender and Parvati shook their heads, which threw her off in a nice way. No annoying chatter. The said girls, of course, owned magical hair products that made their hair perfect for however they might want to style it the next morning.
Hermione sighed, "Sure, it's worth a try."
**
Orion walked with Hermione to the Hall, having finally managed to de-knot her hair and return Hermione's to its day-time frizzy-ness. She wasn't that bad, Orion had decided, but there were some definite markings of a Smart-Assed-Know-It-All. After several rips and hair dunks in water to loosen the knots, the pair had fallen into a semi-relaxed conversation, in which Orion responded to Hermione's probing questions about what happened during the summer by calling her on it and making her ask the questions directly -it saved time and made the confusion a lot less.
The pair entered the Great Hall amongst a crowd if Ravenclaws but disengage and joined their own, very noisy, very lively, Gryffindor table with ease.
Ron paused in his eating long enough to greet Hermione before returning to his previous engagement; Harry took a longer break between mouthfuls of porridge to say "Morning" to both of the girls.
It didn't take long for the new fifth year timetables to filter through the table to their respective owners.
"Oh no."
Neville, who was sitting next to Dean, paled and pushed away his breakfast still looking balefully at his timetable.
"Potions with Snape first thing on a Monday morning; I'm never going to pass!"
Hermione gave him a comforting pat on the arm from across the table before returning to her timetable and breakfast. Harry and Ron, also realising what Neville had, looked at the offending timetables with varying degrees of extreme disgust.
Orion, who watched this with amusement, finished her mouthful of porridge, and said, "I know Snape's a greasy arsehole, but why d'you hate the Slytherins?"
The conversations around her halted unnervingly quickly, Ron's mouth opened and closed, his eyes bulging comically wide, he much resembled a startled goldfish, and he didn't seem to be able to get a word out.
Harry swallowed hard, blinked, and managed to recover first.
"Ha-Have you met a Slytherin?"
She shook her head.
"Just imagine younger-personality Snape's! He is the Head of their House."
Having been visualising a shorter, pimply faced, greasy-haired Snape, Orion laughed. Then she realised what they said and grimaced.
"Seriously?" she asked.
"Seriously." said Harry.
"Oh damn, not good." Suddenly she didn't feel so hungry anymore, with a slow purposeful motion she put down the spoon and pushed away the half-eaten bowl of porridge. Ten minutes later, having finished a goblet of pumpkin juice she said, "Come on, we can't put it off the inevitable." She pulled Neville to his feet, "If Snape is nasty, I'll stick up for you."
Neville smiled, then faltered,
"No wait! If you talk back you'll get into trouble! Gryffindor will get into trouble!"
Orion smirked, pulling him out of the Great Hall laughing to their Common Room to pick up their Potions things.
"Neville, I've been getting into trouble on and of for along time, and if I lose points for sticking up for a friend, then so be it. If other Gryffindors are angry at you and me for that, well they aren't worth being called a friend, or even the time of day really. Think about it, at the end of they day, you chose your friends, and the good ones -they'll still be there at the end of the day."
He looked uncertain for a moment, and then he grinned as he clambered out of the portrait hole.
"Thanks Orion!" She gave him a lop-sided smile, following him to the dungeons whilst talking about Slytherins. Actually, Neville did most of the talking; with a little prompting he told her all about the horrible things the Slytherins had done and said about various Gryffindors. By the time they'd gotten to the lesson Orion realised the snake-house just weren't nice people at all. They were nasty, spiteful and laughed at the misfortune of others -particularly if those others were in Gryffindor.
After arriving in the dungeon classroom with a few minutes to spare, Neville had a chance to point out a few key Slytherins: there was Draco Malfoy (a slick-blonde haired boy with a sneering face), Crabbe (a boulder-type boy), Goyle (another boulder), and Pansy Parkinson (some random pretty, prissy girl that was hanging onto Malfoy's arm). They certainly didn't look like a pleasant lot. They definitely looked like Snape's lot. Then the Potion's master himself swept into the room, his greasy hair hanging in place and his cloak billowing behind him.
Silence fell immediately, no request was needed -he was one of those teachers who didn't need to work for silence and bellow over conversations.
"This year you will be taking your OWL's, you will be working harder than you have before. If you don't achieve at least an A you will not be accepted into my NEWT class -I only accept the brightest -obviously I will not be seeing most of you next year." He looked pointedly at the Gryffindors. "Now, here is a potion to render its drinker speechless for an hour if not given the antidote. I will be marking your potions at the end of the lesson."
Ingredients and directions appeared and the class began their task.
The potion wasn't as hard to make as it was intricately complicated -she nearly ruined the whole thing completely two steps into its making when she was almost added hair from the mane of a lion before the saliva of a dying gorilla.
Half-way through, when she had been trying very hard not to listen to Harry's conversation with Ron and Hermione behind her about Snuffles, which sounded with an animals name, except that they were talking about Snuffles like it/him/her/whatever was a person, Neville whimpered with despair and spooned at his potion mournfully.
"What's up Neville?" she asked.
He gestured to his cauldron, "It's not supposed to be bright purple, is it?"
While everyone else's were varying degrees of pale purple, his was so luminous it was practically giving off ultra-violet light.
She felt her eyes widen before she could dampen the reaction, "No, no it's not. How'd you manage that?"
"I don't know -I put in the dandelions, then the cats nails."
Neville closed his mouth abruptly when Snape looked briefly in their direction, but to their relief he did something highly unusual and went back to praising the Slytherinns.
"How many cats' nails did you put in?"
"I dunno, two, I think. Yes, two cats nails and ten dandelions."
"Neville you only needed to add one cat nail!"
"Oh dear." he stirred the potion fretfully, "Can it be fixed?"
Orion thought for a moment: potion making was a bit like making cakes (minus the burning she inevitably caused when she cooked anything), and when she did something wrong in Food Tech, like add too much of one ingredient, the teacher had told her to just add the rest again -you'd have more than originally planned for, but it'd turn out fine. Perfect. Turning to Neville she smiled brightly,
"No worries -try adding all of the other ingredients again, except fot the cats nails, right? Add everything except the cats nail and it'll be fine!"
Unfortunately, at that precise moment, Snape chose to pay them a visit, and couldn't fail to miss the astonishing colour of Neville's not-quite-fixed-yet potion.
"Well, well, well; we're not even through the first lesson and already Longbottom has proved that he will not be attending my NEWT class, or even getting a C in his OWL's. Congratulations Longbottom, but tell me, were you born stupid, or was it something you learnt as a child?"
Neville said nothing and the Slytherins sneered.
"I'll take your silence as a yes. I think we'll test your potion with the entire class watching, yes -"
"Why don't you let him fix it first? Then he'll have learnt the potion and how to fix it if he does it wrong again another time. What you're suggesting is stupid."
During the interruption the Professor had gone a dangerous shade of crimson, and if she hadn't been so caught up with wondering what he was going to say next, she would have been musing about how many people had interrupted him ever, how many people had called him stupid, and if they'd lived to tell the tale.
"Excuse me." It wasn't a question, "I believe I am in charge of this lesson Miss Taylor, not you. Ten points from Gryffindor for your severe lack of manners, now, shut up and get on with your potion or I'll make it twenty and a detention."
Orion, however, was remembering her promise to Neville and didn't move, and silently prayed to whoever might be listening that she wouldn't be killed for what she was about to do.
"No, I won't shut up."
"What?"
"No, because if you think humiliation is the way to teach then I know you're really wrong. Wouldn't it be better to teach people how to correct their mistakes?"
The classroom had gone eerily quiet. The Slytherins were horrified, the Gryffindors, well she wasn't sure what they were thinking and it was a bit late to turn back now.
"Miss Taylor you will be quiet now or I shall take more than the thirty points you have just lost and give you more than the weeks worth of detentions you have just earned." Snape peered at her over his big nose, casting a glance to Neville who was now rather pale, "And if you say another word at all this lesson, Longbottom will be joining you."
The reaction, although somewhat slow, finally kicked in and she sensed that now would be a good time to keep her mouth shut, especially since it would get Neville into trouble as well, which she didn't want.
When she didn't say any more and he was satisfied that his point and authority had been made clear, Snape moved on to criticizing the rest of Gryffindors potions (hers was too thin). Bearing in mind Snape's threat, she managed to not speak for the rest of the lesson even though she sorely wanted to tell the eyes that she knew were staring at her to go away. It did make her feel better when she saw Neville smile meekly at her, she nodded in reply, and he added the rest of the ingredients again. It appeared that through her tirade, Snape had forgotten about Neville's potion disaster and Orion figured she had one up on the slime-ball, until she was proved wrong. He still tested Neville's potion first and it worked, but Gryffindor lost another five points anyway for a reason that he did not elaborate on.
With everything packed away, the bell rang a minute late, the Slytherins went past pulling faces and the Gryffindors, well they surprised her by not being angry. In fact, they were grinning at her. Maybe they were cooler than she gave them credit for? Ron, especially, looked like he'd just won the lottery.
"That was bloody brilliant!"
"Wow."
Orion grinned; this new school really wasn't as bad as she'd thought as she walked with them back to their Common room.
It was on the way there that she remembered the interesting conversation of the animal personified, and while she was staring at the back of Harry's head, the tugging sensation that she'd seen him before. Regrettably, she couldn't run up to the trio and start asking questions, because she, Ron and Harry and most of the other Gryffindor's had Divination at the top of the North Tower in five minutes with Professor Wispa-Inja.
***
Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand at a scrubbing brush that had been laying motionless on the kitchen table and it came to life -dipping itself in a bucket full of water that was on the floor and beginning to move furiously over a small patch of the table until it began to glisten through the dust and grime, before consequently moving on to the next patch.
"Want a cup of tea, Yesy?"
"Oh yes -that'd be brilliant, Molly -milk and one sugar if you would."
Yesy pulled up a kitchen chair and practically fell in to it, "God this place is a mess -most of the windows on the upstairs landing have been blown out!"
Mrs. Weasley handed her a steaming mug and sat down opposite, "How's Sirius?"
"Avoiding the Nursery," she frowned, "I'm beginning to think we shouldn't let him go up there at all -he just stares at the burn marks on the door from the stairs, won't go any closer. Remus is worried about him."
"I can't imagine what he must be thinking -if I lost any one of mine, let alone all of them, and Arthur too... I wouldn't know what to do."
Yesy nodded, "I don't think he does either, he just knows he wants Harry here and away from the Dursleys and Voldemort and all his Deatheaters dead."
"You don't think he'll do anything stupid?"
"Who knows with Sirius? At least at the moment he's off the Ministry's radar -Pulipcity has seen to that for us… but at the rate Fudge is going, there'll either be a new Minister or whole new departments soon. He's getting paranoid about people plotting against him because he refuses to believe Voldemort is back -says there's been no evidence of it so it's obviously another 'cock and bull' story invented by Harry and Dumbledore to steal his power and bring the Wizarding Community into panic." Yesy explained, between swallows of tea.
Mrs. Weasley raised her eyebrows, "No!"
"Yes, so Voldemort can plan and plot as much as he likes without interference from the Ministry because he doesn't exist."
***
"Jess, she's gorgeous."
"Do you want to hold her?"
He shook his head, "I'll drop her!"
"You won't," she held the bundle of blankets out, ever so gently, to him, and placed her into his arms. Sirius didn't dare to move for fear of dropping their baby and Jessa laughed at him.
"What do you want to call her?"
"Anything but Severus." And he was deadly serious about that point too.
"Okay, Severus is vetoed. What about Capella?"
Sirius pulled a face, "Veto. Faith?"
"Why don't you want to name her after a star? I thought it was a family tradition?"
"She's too special to just be another Black."
The baby in his arms, still nameless, opened her eyes and cooed at her father.
Sirius shook himself from the memories. They were dead, that was the past.
They were dead. That was the problem.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Post A/N- Kay, so not much Harry in this chapter, but there should be lots in the next chapter.
*GASP* Sirius has a past? Other than jokes? Cor blimey, who'd've figured? ;)
--Lani xxx
Review Thank Yous-
Darienetta Stoke: Dari, just remember i'm a very busy girl! I got my non-calc math gcse on the 11th!
Please R/R! :)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chapter Seven
When the moon was waning and the entire Gryffindor Tower existed in the blissful hour or two when everybody residing inside was asleep, Harry tossed and turned and twisted violently in his four-poster bed, trapped inside a nightmare.
With a start he awoke, sweating and shivering, his breath coming in short gasps.
They were getting better, as far as his nightmares went. He hadn't awoken to screams, only to discover they were his own, and from the snores that filled the room, he hadn't yelled out during said nightmare either.
On his rating, it equalled about a five out of ten.
Clambering out of bed and putting on a tee shirt and his glasses, Harry mused that it probably didn't bode well for his sanity that he rated his nightmares, and that at the beginning of the summer, when everything was so fresh and raw, anytime he finally gave in to his exhausted body's order for sleep, the ensuing nightmares rated twelve.
Harry rubbed his scar absently; the now constant ache was a background irritation that he could more than live with, but it was still annoying and a constant reminder that the entire Wizarding community was in dire danger.
*****
Orion awoke entangled in sheets and upside down, and being half asleep and still not quite thinking, she rolled over fully intending to have just another five minutes in the comfort of her bed, but instead promptly landed with a 'thump!' on the floor.
A head full of very bushy hair that defied gravity stuck out from another bed, "Are you alright?"
It was Hermione.
"Yeah," she struggled out of her entangled mess, glaring at the offending items, and muttered, "I've really got to stop doing that."
Hermione disappeared for a minute then reappeared dressed for the school day; now completely awake, thanks to the tumble, Orion mused that either she was very fast changing or was already doing so, and followed the example of getting dressed.
The painful sound of tearing and sleepy chatter greeted her when she came out again, the sources: Hermione was brushing her hair, and the talking was from the chatterboxes of the class.
"Having a hard time there, Hermione?"
She grunted in reply and tore the brush out in disgust.
"Every morning it's like this!"
Orion laughed and began her own unpleasant hair ordeal -she's forgotten to plait it last night, and now there were some very nasty knots that wouldn't have been much of a problem, had her hair been much shorter than it was. It was these times that she seriously considered cutting it short. Knowing, however, that she would regret it if she did, Orion opted for option B.
"Anyone want to come to the bathroom with me? I've got to sort out these tangles, and I really don't want to deal with pain this early in the morning since we've got Snape first."
Lavender and Parvati shook their heads, which threw her off in a nice way. No annoying chatter. The said girls, of course, owned magical hair products that made their hair perfect for however they might want to style it the next morning.
Hermione sighed, "Sure, it's worth a try."
**
Orion walked with Hermione to the Hall, having finally managed to de-knot her hair and return Hermione's to its day-time frizzy-ness. She wasn't that bad, Orion had decided, but there were some definite markings of a Smart-Assed-Know-It-All. After several rips and hair dunks in water to loosen the knots, the pair had fallen into a semi-relaxed conversation, in which Orion responded to Hermione's probing questions about what happened during the summer by calling her on it and making her ask the questions directly -it saved time and made the confusion a lot less.
The pair entered the Great Hall amongst a crowd if Ravenclaws but disengage and joined their own, very noisy, very lively, Gryffindor table with ease.
Ron paused in his eating long enough to greet Hermione before returning to his previous engagement; Harry took a longer break between mouthfuls of porridge to say "Morning" to both of the girls.
It didn't take long for the new fifth year timetables to filter through the table to their respective owners.
"Oh no."
Neville, who was sitting next to Dean, paled and pushed away his breakfast still looking balefully at his timetable.
"Potions with Snape first thing on a Monday morning; I'm never going to pass!"
Hermione gave him a comforting pat on the arm from across the table before returning to her timetable and breakfast. Harry and Ron, also realising what Neville had, looked at the offending timetables with varying degrees of extreme disgust.
Orion, who watched this with amusement, finished her mouthful of porridge, and said, "I know Snape's a greasy arsehole, but why d'you hate the Slytherins?"
The conversations around her halted unnervingly quickly, Ron's mouth opened and closed, his eyes bulging comically wide, he much resembled a startled goldfish, and he didn't seem to be able to get a word out.
Harry swallowed hard, blinked, and managed to recover first.
"Ha-Have you met a Slytherin?"
She shook her head.
"Just imagine younger-personality Snape's! He is the Head of their House."
Having been visualising a shorter, pimply faced, greasy-haired Snape, Orion laughed. Then she realised what they said and grimaced.
"Seriously?" she asked.
"Seriously." said Harry.
"Oh damn, not good." Suddenly she didn't feel so hungry anymore, with a slow purposeful motion she put down the spoon and pushed away the half-eaten bowl of porridge. Ten minutes later, having finished a goblet of pumpkin juice she said, "Come on, we can't put it off the inevitable." She pulled Neville to his feet, "If Snape is nasty, I'll stick up for you."
Neville smiled, then faltered,
"No wait! If you talk back you'll get into trouble! Gryffindor will get into trouble!"
Orion smirked, pulling him out of the Great Hall laughing to their Common Room to pick up their Potions things.
"Neville, I've been getting into trouble on and of for along time, and if I lose points for sticking up for a friend, then so be it. If other Gryffindors are angry at you and me for that, well they aren't worth being called a friend, or even the time of day really. Think about it, at the end of they day, you chose your friends, and the good ones -they'll still be there at the end of the day."
He looked uncertain for a moment, and then he grinned as he clambered out of the portrait hole.
"Thanks Orion!" She gave him a lop-sided smile, following him to the dungeons whilst talking about Slytherins. Actually, Neville did most of the talking; with a little prompting he told her all about the horrible things the Slytherins had done and said about various Gryffindors. By the time they'd gotten to the lesson Orion realised the snake-house just weren't nice people at all. They were nasty, spiteful and laughed at the misfortune of others -particularly if those others were in Gryffindor.
After arriving in the dungeon classroom with a few minutes to spare, Neville had a chance to point out a few key Slytherins: there was Draco Malfoy (a slick-blonde haired boy with a sneering face), Crabbe (a boulder-type boy), Goyle (another boulder), and Pansy Parkinson (some random pretty, prissy girl that was hanging onto Malfoy's arm). They certainly didn't look like a pleasant lot. They definitely looked like Snape's lot. Then the Potion's master himself swept into the room, his greasy hair hanging in place and his cloak billowing behind him.
Silence fell immediately, no request was needed -he was one of those teachers who didn't need to work for silence and bellow over conversations.
"This year you will be taking your OWL's, you will be working harder than you have before. If you don't achieve at least an A you will not be accepted into my NEWT class -I only accept the brightest -obviously I will not be seeing most of you next year." He looked pointedly at the Gryffindors. "Now, here is a potion to render its drinker speechless for an hour if not given the antidote. I will be marking your potions at the end of the lesson."
Ingredients and directions appeared and the class began their task.
The potion wasn't as hard to make as it was intricately complicated -she nearly ruined the whole thing completely two steps into its making when she was almost added hair from the mane of a lion before the saliva of a dying gorilla.
Half-way through, when she had been trying very hard not to listen to Harry's conversation with Ron and Hermione behind her about Snuffles, which sounded with an animals name, except that they were talking about Snuffles like it/him/her/whatever was a person, Neville whimpered with despair and spooned at his potion mournfully.
"What's up Neville?" she asked.
He gestured to his cauldron, "It's not supposed to be bright purple, is it?"
While everyone else's were varying degrees of pale purple, his was so luminous it was practically giving off ultra-violet light.
She felt her eyes widen before she could dampen the reaction, "No, no it's not. How'd you manage that?"
"I don't know -I put in the dandelions, then the cats nails."
Neville closed his mouth abruptly when Snape looked briefly in their direction, but to their relief he did something highly unusual and went back to praising the Slytherinns.
"How many cats' nails did you put in?"
"I dunno, two, I think. Yes, two cats nails and ten dandelions."
"Neville you only needed to add one cat nail!"
"Oh dear." he stirred the potion fretfully, "Can it be fixed?"
Orion thought for a moment: potion making was a bit like making cakes (minus the burning she inevitably caused when she cooked anything), and when she did something wrong in Food Tech, like add too much of one ingredient, the teacher had told her to just add the rest again -you'd have more than originally planned for, but it'd turn out fine. Perfect. Turning to Neville she smiled brightly,
"No worries -try adding all of the other ingredients again, except fot the cats nails, right? Add everything except the cats nail and it'll be fine!"
Unfortunately, at that precise moment, Snape chose to pay them a visit, and couldn't fail to miss the astonishing colour of Neville's not-quite-fixed-yet potion.
"Well, well, well; we're not even through the first lesson and already Longbottom has proved that he will not be attending my NEWT class, or even getting a C in his OWL's. Congratulations Longbottom, but tell me, were you born stupid, or was it something you learnt as a child?"
Neville said nothing and the Slytherins sneered.
"I'll take your silence as a yes. I think we'll test your potion with the entire class watching, yes -"
"Why don't you let him fix it first? Then he'll have learnt the potion and how to fix it if he does it wrong again another time. What you're suggesting is stupid."
During the interruption the Professor had gone a dangerous shade of crimson, and if she hadn't been so caught up with wondering what he was going to say next, she would have been musing about how many people had interrupted him ever, how many people had called him stupid, and if they'd lived to tell the tale.
"Excuse me." It wasn't a question, "I believe I am in charge of this lesson Miss Taylor, not you. Ten points from Gryffindor for your severe lack of manners, now, shut up and get on with your potion or I'll make it twenty and a detention."
Orion, however, was remembering her promise to Neville and didn't move, and silently prayed to whoever might be listening that she wouldn't be killed for what she was about to do.
"No, I won't shut up."
"What?"
"No, because if you think humiliation is the way to teach then I know you're really wrong. Wouldn't it be better to teach people how to correct their mistakes?"
The classroom had gone eerily quiet. The Slytherins were horrified, the Gryffindors, well she wasn't sure what they were thinking and it was a bit late to turn back now.
"Miss Taylor you will be quiet now or I shall take more than the thirty points you have just lost and give you more than the weeks worth of detentions you have just earned." Snape peered at her over his big nose, casting a glance to Neville who was now rather pale, "And if you say another word at all this lesson, Longbottom will be joining you."
The reaction, although somewhat slow, finally kicked in and she sensed that now would be a good time to keep her mouth shut, especially since it would get Neville into trouble as well, which she didn't want.
When she didn't say any more and he was satisfied that his point and authority had been made clear, Snape moved on to criticizing the rest of Gryffindors potions (hers was too thin). Bearing in mind Snape's threat, she managed to not speak for the rest of the lesson even though she sorely wanted to tell the eyes that she knew were staring at her to go away. It did make her feel better when she saw Neville smile meekly at her, she nodded in reply, and he added the rest of the ingredients again. It appeared that through her tirade, Snape had forgotten about Neville's potion disaster and Orion figured she had one up on the slime-ball, until she was proved wrong. He still tested Neville's potion first and it worked, but Gryffindor lost another five points anyway for a reason that he did not elaborate on.
With everything packed away, the bell rang a minute late, the Slytherins went past pulling faces and the Gryffindors, well they surprised her by not being angry. In fact, they were grinning at her. Maybe they were cooler than she gave them credit for? Ron, especially, looked like he'd just won the lottery.
"That was bloody brilliant!"
"Wow."
Orion grinned; this new school really wasn't as bad as she'd thought as she walked with them back to their Common room.
It was on the way there that she remembered the interesting conversation of the animal personified, and while she was staring at the back of Harry's head, the tugging sensation that she'd seen him before. Regrettably, she couldn't run up to the trio and start asking questions, because she, Ron and Harry and most of the other Gryffindor's had Divination at the top of the North Tower in five minutes with Professor Wispa-Inja.
***
Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand at a scrubbing brush that had been laying motionless on the kitchen table and it came to life -dipping itself in a bucket full of water that was on the floor and beginning to move furiously over a small patch of the table until it began to glisten through the dust and grime, before consequently moving on to the next patch.
"Want a cup of tea, Yesy?"
"Oh yes -that'd be brilliant, Molly -milk and one sugar if you would."
Yesy pulled up a kitchen chair and practically fell in to it, "God this place is a mess -most of the windows on the upstairs landing have been blown out!"
Mrs. Weasley handed her a steaming mug and sat down opposite, "How's Sirius?"
"Avoiding the Nursery," she frowned, "I'm beginning to think we shouldn't let him go up there at all -he just stares at the burn marks on the door from the stairs, won't go any closer. Remus is worried about him."
"I can't imagine what he must be thinking -if I lost any one of mine, let alone all of them, and Arthur too... I wouldn't know what to do."
Yesy nodded, "I don't think he does either, he just knows he wants Harry here and away from the Dursleys and Voldemort and all his Deatheaters dead."
"You don't think he'll do anything stupid?"
"Who knows with Sirius? At least at the moment he's off the Ministry's radar -Pulipcity has seen to that for us… but at the rate Fudge is going, there'll either be a new Minister or whole new departments soon. He's getting paranoid about people plotting against him because he refuses to believe Voldemort is back -says there's been no evidence of it so it's obviously another 'cock and bull' story invented by Harry and Dumbledore to steal his power and bring the Wizarding Community into panic." Yesy explained, between swallows of tea.
Mrs. Weasley raised her eyebrows, "No!"
"Yes, so Voldemort can plan and plot as much as he likes without interference from the Ministry because he doesn't exist."
***
"Jess, she's gorgeous."
"Do you want to hold her?"
He shook his head, "I'll drop her!"
"You won't," she held the bundle of blankets out, ever so gently, to him, and placed her into his arms. Sirius didn't dare to move for fear of dropping their baby and Jessa laughed at him.
"What do you want to call her?"
"Anything but Severus." And he was deadly serious about that point too.
"Okay, Severus is vetoed. What about Capella?"
Sirius pulled a face, "Veto. Faith?"
"Why don't you want to name her after a star? I thought it was a family tradition?"
"She's too special to just be another Black."
The baby in his arms, still nameless, opened her eyes and cooed at her father.
Sirius shook himself from the memories. They were dead, that was the past.
They were dead. That was the problem.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Post A/N- Kay, so not much Harry in this chapter, but there should be lots in the next chapter.
*GASP* Sirius has a past? Other than jokes? Cor blimey, who'd've figured? ;)
--Lani xxx