A/N: I'm sorry that it's taken a lifetime, guys. I don't even want to begin explaining everything that's going on in my life. Most of it's not too good. The good news, though, is that I have at least two classes in which I have to pay next to no attention… so I write. This entire chapter was written in the past month during classes… so I guess you could say I took a bit of a sabbatical for the rest of the time.

I'm back, though, so no worries. I promise I'll never actually drop a story… not in the Traveler series, anyway. Lord knows I've dropped Lia Malfoy and Caslin for good. Le sigh.

Welcome to you first-time readers, and welcome back to those of you who've chosen to stick around. It's short, but it's something. And we've got a bit of fluff at the end.

Many, many thanks to Hathor and Risa, my beloved betas, for sticking around!

January 6, 1977

After crouching in the same position for five minutes, Casey's muscles ached and her joints protested. All she wanted to do was shift her weight, but she didn't dare. Even her nose was beginning to itch, so she put a finger firmly under it to keep from sneezing.

She wanted to sit down, but was afraid that if she moved an inch, Sirius would hear and yell at her. There was little else she feared than being yelled at. Confrontation scared the wits out of Casey, quite literally. When anyone confronted her, she clammed up. Her mind went blank. All she could do was cross her arms over her chest and try not to cry.

As such, the idea of Sirius being angry with her wasn't entirely appealing. Though she wanted to be left alone, Sirius was the only person who had been constant about wanting to be around her. She'd kind of like to keep him around.

Casey gnawed her lip nervously. No, she was definitely beginning to think that this was a horrible, horrible idea. Sirius would be positively livid if he found her, and their understanding, which was based on assumptions, was far too unstable for such an ultimate test.

How long does it take for you to get from the Entrance Hall to Gryffindor? When you already know where you're going, that is. She tightened her calf muscle to stretch it. Her nose twitched.

It seemed like she was crouched there for hours before she heard the soft swish of the portrait hole opening. There was deafening silence for a long moment, and then Dumbledore's voice came, soft and dispassionate. "Follow me, please, Mr. Black." Their departure was silent.

The portrait had barely closed before Casey's nose finally erupted in a roaring sneeze. One of her feet slipped off the step, and the next thing she knew, she was lying sprawled at the bottom of the stone steps, groaning at the forming bruises and the clean cut on her cheek.

When she finally made it back to her dormitory, she found that neither she nor Lily could settle their minds enough to sleep. They both lay unmoving on their beds, fully clothed and eyes wide open. With a sigh, Lily sat up and looked at Casey, who stared right back. "I can't stand this," she said.

"I know," Casey said profoundly.

"Well, I propose we do something about it then."

"Okay."

Lily swung her legs over the side of her bed, reaching for a sweater that was draped at the end. "Come on, then," she said quietly, so as not to disturb Alice, who seemed to be quite fast asleep. "I know Potter, or one of the boys, has an invisibility cloak hidden somewhere in their room. It won't take long to find it."

Casey gave Lily an owlish stare. Did she just say what she thought she said? "You want to break the rules?" she whispered.

Even in the dark, Lily's blush was visible. "Well, it's not as if we're going to find anything out by sitting around here." She fidgeted. "You already know everything anyway. Think of it as confirmation."

Casey felt a wave of dread pass over her. Her own nosiness was one thing. Lily's was entirely different. Casey was sure she'd go to hell if she messed up the timeline, and Lily wasn't helping her keep things in order at all.

Lily grasped Casey's hand and pulled her toward the door. "Come on, Casey, please! You know you want to know exactly what's going on."

"But I do know what's going on!" Casey shrieked quietly as Lily bodily dragged her out the door. Casey refused to get up, so Lily had a bit of trouble hauling her around, and by the time that they both fell through the boys' door, they were not only sweaty and exhausted, but giggling madly.

"Shh…" Lily hissed, but neither of them could calm down right away. Luckily, as Lily soon discovered, it was only Peter besides them in the room. "Thank Merlin he'd sleep through a nuclear explosion. But where is Remus?" she whispered.

Casey whispered back, "He went to visit his sick… um… grandmother, remember?"

Lily gave her a skeptical look before shifting onto her feet and tip-toeing to the trunk nearest the door. She frowned at the bed and suddenly seemed to realize that Casey wasn't behind her. "Casey, come on!" she hissed as she bent over and pulled open the lid of the trunk that accompanied the bed. She peeked inside and immediately shut it again. "Didn't think so. Too neat. Casey, come on!"

Casey groaned and climbed to her feet, following Lily to the second bed. Lily immediately began prying at the lid of the trunk, muttering that this had to be "that prat's bed." Casey agreed, actually. Maybe Lily was just looking at the dirty clothes that were strewn all over the bed, but Casey had spotted a ratty piece of fabric poking out from under the pillow. It was dotted with fluttering little golden snitches. Casey shook her head in amusement before shifting her gave to the next bed.

It was exactly what she didn't expect from Sirius, but which actually made perfect sense. What she did expect was something almost exactly like James's bed, with the scattered clothes, the blankets wadded up at the end of the bed, and random things hanging from the canopy. But this… Sirius's entire part of the room was cleaner and neater than even Remus's. It was eerie. In fact, it was sort of creepy. What in the world motivated him to be such a neat freak? There wasn't a single wrinkle in the bed clothes, no stray sweater laid at the end of the bed…

"Aha!" Lily said triumphantly. "I've got it! Come on, let's go." Casey followed her obediently from the room. As soon as they'd crept down the stairs to the common room, Lily turned to her, gripping the silvery cloak with such excitement that her hands shook. "All right," she said, opening the cloak and sorting all the twists out. "Now, I propose that we make directly for the hospital wing. Potter's bound to be there by now, isn't he?"

Casey barely managed to keep from rolling her eyes. For hating Potter so much, Lily certainly was obsessed with him.

By the time they'd made it to the hospital wing, the girls' faces were flushed with the exhilaration of rebellion… and Casey had to wonder if the boys even managed to fit under the cloak anymore. It certainly didn't seem possible after all the trouble the two girls had gone through to keep their toes covered.

They pushed the heavy doors open just enough to slip through, and shuffled into the wing. Casey bit back a grin. She would've bet anything that James was biting Sirius's head off, even if the mediwitch had confined him to the Ward for the time being.

At first, her eyes landed on Snape, who looked grumpy even when fast asleep. He had a scratch at the top of his forehead that the mediwitch had probably left alone to teach him a lesson. Lily drew in a deep, sharp breath. Casey turned her attention to James's bed on the other side of the wing and winced.

Sirius was seated close to James's bed, leaning forward with his hands stretched out to James on top of the blankets. But James lay on his side with his back facing Sirius, face stony and set. Casey tried to glare at Sirius, tried for Remus's sake to be angry with him… but the utter heartbreak on his face… still, as she'd seen before, Sirius was a beyond-brilliant actor. No doubt he was at least sorry for what he'd done, but now that she and Lily had actually crept close enough to see the boys' eyes, she had to doubt the sincerity of the emotion that played over his face. His eyes were sorry enough… but he was above all defiant.

"So he's not sorry in the least," she muttered in Lily's ear.

"What?" Lily whispered back.

Casey shook her head. "Never mind. We should go. Come on."

So they left, creeping as quietly from the wing as they'd come.

Outside, they slipped the cloak off and wandered unconcerned up the halls toward Gryffindor tower. There was a roaring in Casey's ears as they made their way along the corridors. She didn't even hear Lily's haughty whispers, complaining that if Potter wasn't such an idiot he wouldn't be in that "ridiculous" situation in the first place.

By the time they got back to the tower, Casey was worn out. As if a "normal" day wasn't stressful enough, Sirius the Moron had gone and proved that, even separated from his family, he was still a Black, through and through, and Blacks seldom looked beyond immediate satisfaction.

She tossed and turned in bed that night. As exhausted as she was, Casey's mind raced with every thought she'd ever had about that night. She didn't get much sleep before Lily woke her up for breakfast, and was dismayed to find upon stepping into the washroom that the previous night's events had taken their toll. Her hair refused to cooperate, leaving Casey a curtain of thin, oily wasps to hide behind. Her bloodshot eyes didn't help, nor did the circles beneath them. She also sported a lovely swollen bruise on her left cheek from her tumble down the stairs the night before. It hurt like hell, but a single bruise wouldn't have bothered her if it didn't seem that she'd also split the skin pretty well. So, all in all, she appeared to be a female Snape who'd been hit by someone who wore a ring.

Casey winced as she dabbed at the cut with a rag. "Casey, come on! The boys are bound to be at breakfast; I want to see what happens!" Lily called, knocking on the door. Casey rolled her eyes at her reflection and continued gingerly trying to clean her cut. "Casey!"

"I don't think I'm going, Lily," Casey called shortly. Honestly, would that girl ever let up?

A few minutes after Lily left, Casey threw down the rag in frustration. Blood was still crusted to her skin, but it bloody hurt trying to clean it herself. "They have magic for this sort of thing," she yelled at her reflection in frustration.

Luckily able to recall the way, Casey arrived in the hospital wing ten minutes later. When she approached the mediwitch for help, however, she was disappointed. The woman huffed that a fourth year should know how to doctor her own bruises by now. Offended by yet another comment that implied she looked younger than she was, Casey replied impatiently that she didn't know how, thanks, and could she please get some help? The witch, equally perturbed with Casey, told her smartly that this would be good practice.

Left by herself while the mediwitch bustled away into her office, Casey grumbled about the possibility of accidentally turning herself green if she attempted it herself. "Assuming that I could do magic to begin with," she muttered.

Suddenly, she heard the soft creak of bed springs and what sounded like a whimper. Alarmed, she scanned the wing. James's and Snape's beds were empty, as expected, and, in fact, there didn't seem to be anybody in the room besides herself. Shaking her head, Casey turned to leave… but then her eye caught sight of a curtained area in the very back of the room. She blinked. If there was no one else here, why curtain off an area?

Mindful of each footfall, Casey crept to the back of the wing. She carefully peeked around the edge of the curtain...

And a very bloody and battered Remus Lupin stared blearily back.

Casey felt like a prize idiot. Of course Remus would be here, and of course he would look like this. It didn't stop her from being shocked at how horribly beaten he appeared.

"Casey?" Remus rasped. He sounded as if he'd been screaming for hours. Come to think of it, with the absence of his friends last night and the scent of human flesh so near, he probably had been screaming for hours.

The sudden sound made Casey jump, and she immediately began to back away, apologizing. "I'm sorry, I didn't know… I mean… I didn't mean to…"

"Casey," Remus rasped again, louder this time. Casey paused and stared back with wide eyes. Remus's lips, cracked and swollen, twitched into a smile. "It's all right to be curious." He motioned for her to come closer, so she moved in to stand next to his bed. "I assume that this is what you were trying to convince our resident mediwitch to tend to," he said, reaching up to her cheek. Casey just stared at him. Remus watched her for a moment before reaching to the bedside table for his wand.

Casey gasped, wincing when he pointed the tip directly at her face. Immediately, the wand was drawn away. "No?" Remus asked. Casey shook her head. "All right then. It's safer to do it the Muggle way anyway. You don't exactly want someone untrained pointing a wand in your face, do you?" She wanted to tell him she trusted him implicitly, but found herself nodding along with him. She really didn't want anything pointed at her face, thank you very much.

Remus relaxed back onto his pillow, his eyes searching her face seriously. "Do you want my help at all?" he finally asked quietly.

Casey frowned. Why the heck not? It took her a moment to realize what he was trying to find out. The second she caught on, she nodded fiercely, still frowning, and hoped that he knew there was no question on her part. If he believed her sincerity, he didn't show it, however. They both stared at each other, frowning thoughtfully. It was Casey who finally moved, opening a drawer in the bedside table and pulling out a clean white cloth. Remus took it wordlessly, magically wet it, and reached out a hand to Casey.

When she stepped closer, Remus gently took a hold of her arm and pulled her closer still until she had seated herself gingerly on the very edge of the bed next to him. He dabbed at the dried blood carefully, testing how well the scab had gripped the skin around the wound.

"How'd you come by this?" Remus asked softly, his voice still hoarse.

"Fell down some stairs," Casey answered automatically.

The corner of Remus's mouth twitched into a tiny, pained smile. "Why didn't you ask Lily or Sirius to help? Or even Alice or James?"

Casey simply kept staring at him. He was still talking about Sirius? Wasn't he… ohhh…. "Did you just wake up?" she asked.

The cloth on her cheek hesitated for a moment before it continued its task. "I fell down some stairs myself on my way back from visiting my mum, but it looks like you fared better than I."

Casey gave him a tense smile, keeping her mouth clamped shut to avoid asking if he fell down stairs every month.

"Didn't Lily offer to help clean you up? I assume Sirius didn't see you, or else he'd have blamed Slytherin and Snape would be in the hospital wing as well."

"They were," Casey blurted. She immediately turned away, squeezing her eyes shut. Crap crap crap crap holy bloody freaking Mary and all that is holy… She peeked back at Remus.

"Who was in the hospital wing?" Remus asked quietly.

Casey pursed her lips, knowing she would have to answer. Everything about Remus, except his eyes, appeared utterly exhausted. His eyes, however, were more alert than ever, scanning her face for any sign of trouble.

With a sigh, Casey told him, "James and Snape. Sirius was here for a while as well."

"Why? They didn't play a prank without me, did they?" The question came so quickly that it startled Casey. She recognized Remus's facial expression well, for it was one she was sure she often wore. When the crease in his brow deepened, Casey knew he was torn. Did he believe in the loyalty of his friends, or wisely begin to steel himself against their betrayal? Still, he was examining her very closely.

"Did you really fall down a flight of stairs?" Remus asked.

Casey's eyes involuntary narrowed. "Did you?" she countered without thinking. Oops.

Remus's features hardened almost imperceptively. Casey forced herself to maintain her innocent confusion… or the appearance of it, anyway.

They both stared blankly at each other, trying to decide what they should do. They both knew that they'd called each other on their dishonesty.

"Well, Casey," Remus said, laying the cloth aside, "it seems that we are at an impasse."

"I concur," she replied blandly, automatically resorting to repeating phrases from movies ('Catch Me If You Can' in this case).

The corner of Remus's mouth twitched, but his expression remained stern. "Then I propose that we drop the subject entirely and part ways for the day."

Casey nodded. "K." With a final little nod from Remus, she turned and left the curtained enclosure, popping her head back in suddenly to say, "I hope you feel better soon, by the way."

She'd almost made it all the way out of the hospital wing when the mediwitch reappeared and began berating her for obviously coming from Remus's curtained little room. Casey shrank away from the woman, afraid to answer until the mediwitch drew her wand. It was probably only to finally heal the cut Casey had acquired on her cheek, but the witch wielded the wand with such aggression that Casey's frayed nerves rapidly shredded. She shrieked that she was Remus's friend, and she was just checking on him!

Casey threw herself out the doors and sprinted down the hall. Out of a pure burst of adrenalin, she managed to run in a completely random direction, all the time heading upwards. She dodged Nearly Headless Nick at one point, realizing seconds later that, well… she'd passed a real ghost.

Still, she ran. She'd long ago stopped running from the mediwitch, and now simply ran from everything else. However, just like on her first day at Hogwarts, even the most extreme amount of adrenalin could not keep her running long enough to make it up all the stairs in Hogwarts. She did make it up a good deal of them, though, and by the time she was worn out and wanted to go back, she couldn't find the stairs that went down.

She wandered the halls helplessly, completely lost. Every door was locked, every new direction was blocked off somehow. When she turned back, she found the way she'd come gone.

She'd just begun to feel so lost that she wanted to curl up against the wall and cry (she hadn't yet because she was afraid she would vanish with the shifting walls) when she spotted a square of daylight shining on the floor up ahead. She hurried down the hall and burst out of the doorway through which the light was shining. It took her only a second to realize that she wasn't alone, that Sirius Black was, in fact, perched on the ledge of the balcony, back against the stone wall, and he was staring out into the glaring sun.

For a moment, Casey stopped breathing, struck by the way the light shone against his pale face, glinted off his hair, and sparkled in his emotionless eyes. When she felt the spinning wave of faintness creeping up on her, a horrifying thought shot through her mind. "Oh no! I'm in love with Sirius Black!" she felt like shouting. As soon as the thought came, though, it was banished with the realization that she simply needed air.

She gasped. Oh, good. I was just suffocating myself, she thought wryly.

Since she'd been running (and then dying), her breathing was loud and heavy enough to alert Sirius to her presence. He turned his head slowly and stared at Casey, who stared right back. Good Lord, Casey thought to herself, is this all I'm going to do today? Annoyed, she glared at Sirius. Aren't you going to complain? Don't you have any excuses? she wanted to say cruelly. Stupid, stupid, stupid boy!

Sirius attempted his usual lopsided grin without much success. "Everyone's fine, you know," he said, as if trying to move past the horrors of the previous night and get onto the next adventure.

Casey couldn't think of a reply, but said the first thing that came to mind anyway. "I was running and I got lost." She immediately felt like a prize idiot.

Sirius's half-hearted little smile became genuine, and Casey couldn't help the relief that flooded her. "Lost again, Casey?" he joked quietly. "Perhaps you should give up running from everything that scares you."

Casey frowned. "Who says I was scared?"

It was eerie how half-hearted all his actions were. "Would you run if you weren't?"

Casey pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the boy. After a long pause, she answered, "I don't like running."

"Nobody really likes running, Case. It just takes too much courage to stop."

"I don't like courage," she blurted.

Sirius gave a wry little chuckle and held a hand out to her. Casey took his hand hesitatingly, and he pulled her up onto the ledge, seating her in front of him and wrapping his arms around her waist. "Oh, I think you do," he said as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "I think courage is what you want most out of your life."

Casey flinched and pressed her lips together, allowing Sirius to pull her back against his chest. She cared about this boy as one of her only friends in the entire world, but that didn't mean she didn't hate him and how he was always right about her without even trying. That stupid, stupid, stupid boy. "Why are you even out here?" she asked coolly. "It's the middle of the day; you should be in class."

"So should you," he countered, tipping his head to the side so that his temple rested against her ear. "I like looking at the light."

Casey frowned, turning her head a bit to try and look at him. "It's just ordinary daylight. The sunrise or sunset would be more interesting."

"The sunrise and sunset are overrated," he said. Casey was about to take offense when he explained. "Ordinary light… that's the miracle. It's so much more real. We just never take the time to look. Look!"

Casey obeyed, gazing out across the landscape of the Hogwarts grounds. The colors were bright. Every surface the light touched shimmered. With that and Sirius's body heat keeping her warm, she'd never seen a more glorious day.

"Can I trust you?" Sirius finally asked.

"Can I trust you?" she threw back at him. I'm doing that a lot lately, she thought. Sirius's arms tightened around her waist. It's too bad you're such a self-centered jerk. You're exactly the kind of boy I was hoping for.

He sighed, burying his face in the crook of her neck a moment later. I was sent here to take care of you while I can, I realize, she told him silently. But don't worry. There are lots of girls you can hook up with yet. We'll find you someone if it kills us. Casey hugged his arms.

Though, I must admit, she added, you do smell divine.

Review!