See first part for notes about this collection of stories.

Disclaimer: I am but a poor college student. Please don't sue me.

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

"I expect by now you have all heard the news."

Albus seems old, tonight. His face is drawn, heavy with strain and weariness. As he addresses his staff, he is graver than Minerva has ever seen him—graver even than on that bleak night twelve years ago. She can hardly blame him. It is a dark matter of which he speaks, a subject which draws out long-buried memories of fear and suspicion and grief.

Albus pauses, scanning the gathered professors with a shrewd gaze. Minerva knows he is debating whether or not to say the words. Breathing deep, he finally announces, "Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban."

Something twists low and throbbing in Minerva's stomach, and she looks away.

She takes the moment to look at her colleagues. Severus looks sullen, which is not unusual, but there seems to be a certain spite to his scowl this evening. It makes her skin crawl. His usual moodiness is laced with Something. Something dark and brutal. Something that smacks of animosity

("Thirty points from Gryffindor! Mr. Snape, get yourself to the Infirmary Wing, quickly now—help him, Mr. Avery—")

and bile

("You'll regret this, you bastards—you fucking blood-traitors, you'll pay for this—")

and a long-standing rivalry with a dead man and a traitor.

Severus, will you never forgive?

Minerva glances quickly away, disturbed by her thoughts. Her gaze lands on Remus, who sits quietly across the table, staring down at his lap.

Oh, Remus. What can he possibly be thinking at a time like this? Where do his thoughts lie?

With his dead best friends, perhaps, or with the man who killed them. With his troubled past, or with his uncertain future. With the moon

(delicate now but gaining strength)

or with the scars his students will question. With the man he loved and loves still, though he has never spoken the words.

No, this truth has never passed his lips. Perhaps he denies it, in the dark recesses of his mind and his heart. Perhaps he still hopes to forget. Perhaps he has simply accepted that his impossible love is destined for oblivion.

Minerva knows. She is an unmarried professor, an old woman with no family—but she was once a young woman in love. She knows the agony of a broken heart, the bitter taste of regret, and she aches for her former student.

She knows, too, how easy it was to love Sirius Black.

Her heart jolts, and the thought of the man so long imprisoned in Azkaban

(filthy lank hair, wild eyes, high keening wail as the dementors close in)

makes her shudder to her bones.

But.

Whatever he is now

(mad, destroyed, broken shadow of a ruthless monster)

the man who betrayed the Potters was once Sirius Black, the greatest heartbreaker Hogwarts had ever seen.

The heartless murderer was once a brilliant, captivating, beautiful boy—stunning in his confidence and his unfiltered charm.

He was Sirius Black, one of the golden boys of Gryffindor—blessed with a quick mind, a raw talent for Quidditch, and a glorious smile. He was someone to be imitated and worshipped. He was enchanting, impossible to hate. His allure was a thing of desire, infatuation, obsession. Girlfriends fought over him; boys trailed him like puppies.

Everyone loved him, for there was something about him that demanded nothing less than absolute devotion. Trust me, it said. Trust me, love me—give me your heart and promise me your soul. I am everything you have ever wanted. I am everything you will ever need. Love me. Trust me.

But in the end, it didn't matter. Everyone wanted Sirius Black, and no one could have him. His love affairs were frequent, celebrated, and short. Girls fell over themselves to steal his love, but none could keep it. Black's heart belonged to no one.

Except, perhaps—

(hand lingering just a moment too long, secretive curve of pretty lips, fleeting mysterious glint in hazel eyes)

—but, no. Minerva is far too old for rumors.

And even if…even if. What does it matter, now? Now, after all that has happened?

(There is a part of her that insists that it matters very much indeed, that perhaps this could unravel the Why that she so longs—aches—needs to understand. But she finds, in the end, that she is afraid to know the truth.)

Sirius Black. The wild, lovely, irresistible Sirius Black.

By all rights, she should have disliked him, and Potter too. The two of them were like so many others she has seen: rich, spoiled, effortlessly talented and supremely arrogant. She should have been especially strict with them, as she is with all such students—determined to teach them the value of something other than money and power. She never taught Sirius and James that lesson.

But then

("It was time for him to leave, Professor. So he left. He never belonged there."

"And you believe you know where he belongs?"

"Yeah. I do.")

she thinks perhaps they learned it anyway.

Yes, she should have disliked them—but instead she loved them, from the day she became their Head of House

(shoulders straight as he removes the hat, steely eyes revealing nothing, fingers cold as they brush hers)

to the day they left Hogwarts, and beyond. Until

("The Potters—James and Lily—they're—")

until

("It was him, Minerva—don't you understand? It was him. It was Sirius.")

until.

What happened to you, Sirius? Was everything truly a lie, all that time?

She tells herself that they were not so special, after all. The Slytherins are similarly ambitious, and the Ravenclaws equally as clever. The Hufflepuffs are surely just as loyal, and all Gryffindors show that same senseless bravado. James Potter and Sirius Black were simply two bright, talented purebloods, like so many others.

They were nothing more than two adventurous young men, poised at the brink of legend

("I expect you'll want to keep that signature, Professor—for when I'm famous, you know.")

and now one is dead and one is a madman, and their legend is dead.

It is over. It is over.

But when she walks the halls of Hogwarts, she still finds herself looking for the familiar swagger of her favorite students.

(She dreams, sometimes, that he is innocent. It was all a mistake. It was not Sirius—never, never him. She always knew he could never betray James that way. In her dream, he is stricken and forlorn, heartbroken, a ghost of the boy she loved. He looks like a lost little child, and she takes him into her arms and holds him gently, the way his own mother never did. He is bony and fragile under her hands, shuddering like he might fly apart at any moment, and he weeps and weeps into her tartan skirts.)

She flattens her hands along her thighs to stop them trembling, and curses herself for ever trusting Sirius Black.