Now, I don't know about all of you reading along to this, but that shocked me. I had no idea how to confront her and anyway, seeing her standing there just made it slip out. Now, with her turning tail and storming out of the portrait, letter deep in the pocket of her robes, my head really was spinning. This made no sense. Her parents died, but she showed no emotion over it. She's denying the fact that she's innocent of a crime. She can't look at any of us and she only has one friend left, who sometimes doesn't seem to want to be anywhere near her…

Huh?

The diary was nudging at the forefront of my mind again. There must be something in there… I jumped to my feet, shuffling up the stairs to our dorm. It was dimly lit, Remus and Peter snoring in their beds, Sirius sitting upright, pouring over the map.

'She's in the Owlery.' He knew what I was thinking before I opened my mouth. I nodded and walked around Remus' bed to get to his, lifting the lid of his trunk. Sirius didn't look up.

'Lost something?'

'Evans' Diary. Where'd you put it?'

'It's in there,' he said, waving his hand dismissively. 'I gave up ripping pages out and dumped it all in the bottom. There's nothing good in there.'

Sure enough, a mass of crumpled pages and the tattered looking leather book lay in the bottom of his trunk. I scooped the lot out and dropped it with a dull thud onto the floor. Spreading out the pages, I opened the book and set to work putting it all back together.

'Prongs, there's no point, it's obvious she did it.'
I lifted the book and shook it angrily. 'Is it? Does it say she was stealing stuff in here?'

Sirius blinked and sighed, looking back at the map. 'No… but we found our stuff in her trunk and she never denied it… not properly. No one else could have got into her trunk. And in the carriage on the train, she was up to something… meeting someone like that.'

'Wrong. Why would someone abduct her if she was guilty? Unless they were threatening her.'

Sirius' head snapped up and he stared at me in shock. I grinned.

'Yeah,' I said, feeling nothing. 'I think Evans' is protecting someone. Or herself.'

We made it our business from then on to investigate Evans and find out what was really going on. It was the fact that her parents had suddenly died… together… that had me thinking. Rumours spun around the Great Hall the next day, claiming that they'd died in a car crash. Lily didn't deny them, she just sat, straight backed, straight faced, never saying a word. Bianca was nowhere to be found and Susan, who had once been one of Lily's best friends, was sitting a fair bit away, shooting guilty looks down the table. It was amazing that we'd missed this. Being so wrapped up in Quidditch (I'd been captain since fifth year), Head Boy, exams, and the now up-and-coming ball, I had completely missed the fact that Lily was isolated.

Two days ago, none of us would have cared… well, bar Remus. He told me when I confronted him about her that she'd once been there for him when no one else was, and he would do the same for her, no matter what he thought she'd done. I'd never asked.

Now, I nudged him in the elbow, knocking over his Pumpkin juice.

'James!'

'Sorry mate, orange isn't your colour anyway. Hey, what's the deal with Evans and Gutteridge?'

Remus looked at me as he finished Vanishing the spilled Pumpkin juice. 'Susan was the one who told Sirius about Evans stealing, remember? She said she'd seen a few things that belonged to Sirius in Evans trunk. But they'd had a falling out before then. They'd barely spoken in weeks, so Susan was well pleased to tell all about… how'd she put it..? Evans' extracurricular activities.'

I pushed my eggs around my plate in circles, thinking hard. Padfoot and I had poured over that book, and there hadn't been a word about nicking stuff in there. The pages he'd ripped out had just been conversations, or strange things we'd do in one of our crazy moments where we'd figure something out. You know, we'd just be laughing and joking about something like conjuring animals and modifying their nature, then Sirius would dopily say something along the lines of 'Yeah, as if we can conjure some killer bees and force them to attack and murder someone like Snivellus.'

We'd all start laughing at the thought then fall silent, our eyes would widen and we'd try it. And, of course, it'd work. Not that we actually conjured killer bees to attack and murder Snivellus. It was only a few stings.

Anyway, they were just conversations like that and strange spells that we discovered that she'd jotted down. It was the entries about her family and Susan that confused me.

I don't know what to do. I mean, I can't apologise for being like this, can I? We're family, and I can't even go home for a month in peace.

She keeps acting strange. Her family is in deep, I know that. She accidentally let slip that her parents were asked to join him, but they refused and that's how they died. I can't imagine being an orphan and having to live with your uncle, an uncle you never met. I've heard strange stories about him, too. Augustus was a good student back in his day, but Susan said he keeps to himself and she's not allowed in certain rooms.

I can't stand the thought of going home for Christmas, I think I might stay here this year. Petunia shrieks whenever I turn a corner suddenly, as if she's terrified of me. But all she does is taunt me and threaten to tell everyone how I'm a 'freak'. I hate going home with her there. I miss Mum and Dad so much. I guess I'll see them after this year is over, but now that I'm friends with James and Sirius things are a lot more interesting here. James is so much nicer than I thought. Imagine, I used to think he was stupider than a troll, but he's not all that bad. Bianca keeps teasing me, saying I fancy him but… well, I guess I admire him more than I should.

This last entry had Sirius nudging me and making lewd comments. Yeah, that would explain his currently fading black eye. But now I was watching Susan closely. I can't imagine why I never thought about her. Now, watching her fading away, skinny, quiet, pale… it was so damn abvious.