A/N For those who aren't familiar with the vagaries of British English pronunciation of names, Featherstonehaugh is pronounced Fanshaw. Don't ask me why, it's for the same reason that Cholmondesley is pronounced Chumlee and Woolfhardisworthy pronounced Woolsey. It just is.

Chapter three: Close Encounter of the Sirius Kind

The rest of that first week was hard on Ginny. The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that year, Professor Featherstonehaugh, was, well not the best teacher Ginny had ever had – not the worst, Snape and Umbridge were numbers one and two in her book, but certainly not exactly competent. He'd gone on at length about the mistakes she and Lily had apparently made in their fight the previous Saturday, but it seemed fairly obvious, from what he was saying, that he himself had never experienced the Cruciatus curse and had no idea how debilitating it was. Ginny felt she controlled her temper quite well in the lesson, but wasn't sure how many more times she could hear the arrogant fool say "Of course, what your mistake there was, Miss Weston," before coming out with an impossibly idiotic solution, without cursing him into – well, whatever.

Professor McGonagall's transfiguration lesson was as challenging as usual, but the Professor herself had held Ginny back after class and given her a few gruff words of encouragement that, quite frankly, both surprised and uplifted her. Until potions – Professor Slughorn seemed quite taken with her – he'd heard of her hexing abilities and obviously thought, as he had done when he had met her the previous year in her time, that she was a person of potential worth cultivating. She spent quite a lot of time avoiding his invitation to the "Slug Club" as she was quite certain Snape would be there and she really didn't want to spend any time with him.

Outside of lessons she had tried to avoid people, without being too obvious about it. The excuse of being from a different school and having a lot to catch up on was working, for the moment, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep it up.

Yes, the rest of that first week has been hard on Ginny, but no-where near as hard as that first weekend. She successfully negotiated Saturday by hiding all day in a remote corner of the library. She was about to try and repeat the feat on Sunday when she was commandeered by Benjy Fenwick.

"Oh no you don't Jenny!" He said intercepting her on her way out of the Gryffindor Common Room. "You have plenty of time to catch up, it's fabulous weather and you are not going to spend another day cooped up inside. You are coming for a walk round the grounds with me."

Benjy would have been, in other circumstances, very good company Ginny thought. But the trouble was, she couldn't say anything. She'd start to say something and then realise and have to change her mind in the middle of the sentence. She was certain that she was coming across like a complete idiot. He then forced her to join with the other sixth years for lunch and even made a specific point of including her in the conversation. The others all started doing it as well.

Ginny didn't realise that they'd all decided that she was, not only chronically shy, but also must be incredibly homesick, the way she'd been avoiding them. And they had decided that they were going to make her feel better, make her feel like part of them. They spent the afternoon asking her questions about her old school, her friends, her family. The lies got very wearing on her and, once or twice, she lost track of things she'd said.

She tried to keep it close to the truth, her older brother Ray, her friends Hermia, Harvey, Nigel and Lucy. She figured it was probably pretty safe to talk about Colin Creevey (although she called him Colin Reeves) and his obsession with photography but still, it was a difficult time.

And the worst part of it was, she missed everyone. At least in her own time, she'd be getting some news of what Harry, Hermione and Ron were doing, and both Neville and Luna were there for her. But here – they could have been hurt, or killed for all she knew. And, without lessons, there was very little to keep her mind off them all the time.

She had been very relieved when Monday morning came around. The only sixth form classes scheduled for that morning were Ancient Runes and Divination and Ginny didn't take either of them. It was a small matter to avoid Alice's offer of a walk to the lake, a muttered "Potions homework" did the trick. And it was such a relief to be able to just sit in the corner of the empty common room, alone.

Suddenly she heard someone crash through the portrait hole. She looked up startled, her hand instinctively on her wand.

"Stupid W! Complete B!"

"Hello Sirius. What's wrong?" She couldn't help but be amused, Sirius, in this time period, was infectious with his sense of humour she had discovered.

"That idiot Featherstonehaugh!"

"Oh. He's dreadful." She paused as Sirius turned to look at her "I mean I've had my fair share of bad defence teachers but I've had some good ones too. He's definitely one of the bad. Not the worst though." She thought about Umbridge. "What are you supposed to be doing?"

"Patronus charm. But there's no point. I can't."

"Course you can, why would you think you can't?"

"Because James and Remus at least managed to produce some kind of silvery vapour out the end of their wands, by the end of the lesson, I was the only one who hadn't!"

"Where are they now?"

"Looking for Peter."

Ginny thought for a moment and came to a decision. "A couple of years ago, we had this really awful DADA teacher, completely dreadful, honestly. Wouldn't let us do any magic in class at all!"

"What? That's insane!"

Ginny went into her Umbridge impression "Hem hem. Why on earth would you children need to use magic in class? Do you really think you're going to be attacked in my classroom? As long as you fully study the theory then the practical should be no problem!" She grinned up at Sirius, who was shaking his head at the idiocy. "Anyway," she continued in her normal voice, "Ha – Harvey, this boy at my school, was really good at the whole defence thing so we set up a secret group and he taught us the stuff he knew. There were people from all years there and he taught us all the same sort of stuff." Sirius had, by this time, reversed a chair and sat down on it back to front looking at her. "And one of the things was the Patronus and … I mean I don't pretend to be an expert or anything I've never cast it at a real Dementor and that's supposed to be so much harder but if you'd like I could … well you know." She finished lamely, it was hard to look into those grey eyes and stay coherent for any length of time she found.

"Are you offering to help me?"

"Yes." She said

"You're a sixth year." She nodded, "And you learnt this two years ago."

She looked back down at her homework "Well I knew you probably wouldn't but …"

"Show me."

"Huh?" she looked back up. Sirius leapt to his feet and pulled her into a standing position.

"Show me!"

"Uh, OK." She paused for a moment, filling herself with her happy memory. She pointed her wand "Expecto Patronum!" A large silver lioness burst from the end of her wand and pounced towards the other side of the room, shook it's head and then turned and trotted back towards Ginny. She held out her hand towards it and it came forward and sniffed, as if checking her scent, before disappearing.

"Wow, that was … wow!" Said Sirius sounding impressed. "OK, teach me how to do it."

"Well," she said thinking, "this is the first time you've done this right?" He nodded "OK well the first time is the hardest so it will take a bit longer, but it gets faster with practice." She thought a moment "We're in a calm atmosphere, that'll make things easier. Much easier. Let's see." She looked around the common room, empty apart from them. "OK stand there." she directed him "I need … oh this will do."

"What are you …" he turned round to look at her.

"Face that way!" She said firmly as she dragged a small footstool over behind him and stood on it. He complied with a small grin on his face. Stood on the stool she was nearly his height, which was perfect. She could now speak quietly, almost whisper, and he would hear her.

"OK," she said, "this is going to start of something similar to Muggle meditation. Except we're going to be standing up. You need to relax and prepare. Close your eyes." He complied, "OK now breathe in … and out … in … and out." She matched her breathing to her words, encouraged to hear him follow her, taking deep breaths in a steady, slow rhythm. "Now think of a really happy memory, a time where the world seemed perfect." He frowned for a moment and then nodded. "OK, feel that memory, relive it, let it take over, feel it filling you up."

He could feel her breath at the back and side of his neck. Concentrating hard on not being distracted, he kept up with the rhythmic breathing as he heard her softly spoken words. His happy memory: that day by the lake, with all four marauders. The day they told Moony they'd succeeded and that he'd never have to be alone on full moon every again. They'd all sat in silence, together, friends. That day they had bound themselves to each other so much more than ever before, it was the day he realised that, just like Moony, he'd never be alone again. A feeling of warmth spread through him. He barely registered that there was an attractive girl nearly touching him, he just concentrated on the memory and her voice.

"Now we are going to count down slowly from ten. On one you will open your eyes and cast the charm. Keep concentrating on your happy memory. Ten … nine … eight count with me seven." He joined in quietly "six … five … four … three" she was barely whispering now "two …" she leaned in closer and, as he said one she whispered "Believe!"

His eyes shot open "Expecto Patronum!" It worked. Unmistakably it was a very successful, corporal Patronus that charged out of his wand. The two of them watched it silently charge to the other end of the common room before it turned and trotted back towards them.

"Cool Patronus." Ginny said quietly

"Yeah." He said, sounding slightly awed.

"Wow, Padfoot did you do that!" An amazed voice sounded behind him.

The two of them whipped round startled, Ginny falling backwards off her stool in surprise and Sirius catching her instinctively. The other three marauders were standing at the entrance to the common room gaping in astonishment. The Patronus disappeared as soon as Sirius turned round.

On the disappearance of the Patronus, James took in the scene more closely and grinned. "Something you're not telling us Padfoot mate?"

Sirius seemed struck dumb for a moment. "Um, well …" began Ginny "It's just that Ha – this boy at my old school showed a bunch of us how to do the Patronus a couple of years ago and … um ... I said I'd help and … Sirius you can put me down now, I mean you can do it now it's just a question of practicing so it becomes quicker and I guess I really should get my potions homework done and" red suffused her face as she continued babbling. "Um you can let me go now you know." He did so and she scrambled off the stool and back to the table with her homework, feeling very silly. She buried her head in her potions text thinking 'Oh very clever, Ginny! Now you've just proved you are a babbling idiot to Harry's dad. And to Professor Lupin. And to Harry's Godfather.' Although it was very difficult to think of the seventeen year old Sirius as Harry's Godfather. Especially when his arms had been around her waist and his eyes were so full of laughter and … 'Stop it!' she told herself firmly. 'Just stop it!"