Ebony had to deal with pitying looks and endless questions of 'are you alright?' for the next few weeks, all of which were driving her up the wall. Neville made an effort not to bring it up, she knew he was waiting until she was ready to talk. Problem was, she didn't think she ever would be.

Luckily though, the bruise on her face healed and soon everyone's minds turned to the first Hogsmeade weekend on Halloween.

...

"Professor, I'm sure I had it but-"

"It's alright Longbottom, your grandmother sent your permission slip on in advance." McGonagall said .

"Oh, thank Merlin." Said Neville with a sigh of relief.

"Here's mine, Professor." Ebony said as she handed McGonagall the slip of paper. Her and Neville left the classroom and started down the corridor to charms.

"I thought your parents were annoyed at you this summer." Neville said, looking confused

Ebony returned the look of confusion. "They were, probably still are. Why?"

"How'd you get one of them to sign your permission slip?"

"Oh, I didn't." Neville knit his brow. "I signed it myself. Turns out I'm quite good at forgery." Ebony grinned at Neville who seemed unsure whether to be bothered by the fact that his best friend had just committed fraud or impressed that she got it past Professor McGonagall so easily.

...

Hogsmeade looked like postcard. The small village was full of buildings with slate roofs and shuttered windows. It looked almost spooky though, coated in a thin layer of mist and fallen leaves and many of the shops and houses had carved pumpkins sat on their doorsteps. Very fitting for Halloween.

"It's so pretty!" Ebony said. Neville nodded in agreement, eyes wide with curiosity. They went straight to Honeydukes, as did half the school it seemed. She had never seen so many weird and wonderful sweets, she wanted to buy everything. She managed to settle for Exploding BonBons and a couple of liquorice wands. Neville chose a large red lollipop and some Fizzing WhizzBees. They were both going to be as high as kites tonight.

They left Honeydukes and had started towards the Three Broomsticks when Neville stopped and pointed across the square. "There's a dog." He said, grinning.

"Cool." Ebony replied. She had never been a huge fan of dogs since her great uncle's bloodhound had chased her at one of his garden parties when she was seven. She could still remember the drool dripping from it's mouth as it growled at her. Her father eventually came to her rescue and caught the beast. Her mother however found the whole incident highly amusing.

Unfortunately, Neville seemed dead keen on the animal and had started speed walking across the square. She sighed and followed suit.

The dog was black and shaggy and was digging through a bin. Ebony stopped quite a distance away from it but Neville went right up to say hello. He crouched by it and whistled, the dog stopped what it was doing and looked up. "Hello," he said, holding his fist out in front of him. The dog sniffed at it before giving it a lick. "You're a handsome boy aren't you?" He said, scratching his ears. The dog gave a short bark in agreement.

Neville looked over his shoulder. "You wanna come say hello?"

"I'm okay over here actually."

He gave her a quizzical look." Are you scared of dogs?"

Ebony chewed her lip. "Not exactly," she said, "I'm just not very fond of them"

Neville studied her for a moment before reaching his hand out to her. "Do you trust me?"

"Neville-"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do." She said.

"Well then." He said smiling. He nodded towards his outstretched hand. Ebony gave a sigh of defeat and took it. He guided her down next to him, squeezing her hand as she came close to the dog. "Be nice to my friend." He said. The dog gave a small yip and wagged his tail. . Neville guided her hand down to the dogs head and curled it into a fist. "You gotta let him smell you." Ebony looked at him in panic but he gave her an encouraging smile. "I'm here, okay?" Ebony let out a shaky breath and gave him a small smile. Then she held out a trembling fist towards the dog. He sniffed it and then butted his head against it. "You can stroke him now." She cast another nervous glance at Neville before giving the dog's head a small stroke. She smiled. He was quite cute.

Ebony looked at Neville again, who was grinning away. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, okay." He said , giving the dog a final scratch on the head. He helped Ebony to her feet and they started walking back towards the Three Broomsticks. Neville grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'm proud of you." Ebony blushed. "You faced your fear."

"Pity I couldn't do it before." She sighed.

Neville stopped abruptly. "Hey." He said, giving her a meaningful look. "That's completely different and you know it." Ebony looked at her feet. She didn't think it was that different. If she could approach a dog despite being terrified, why couldn't she have defeated a Boggart that wasn't even her real parents. "You're brave. Don't forget that." She gave a small snort.

"Sure."

"I mean it." He said sincerely. She smiled and rolled her eyes.

They turned to start walking again but before they could, Neville was shoved from behind and he fell to the ground with a loud yelp as his knees smacked against the cobbles. Ebony turned to see Crabbe and Goyle high-fiving and laughing their heads off. "Oh you're so bloody hilarious aren't you!" She yelled, feeling her cheeks flush with anger. "Fuck off will you!" The two boys grinned at each other and walked towards her.

"My, my Lestrange. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth." Crabbe said and both of them snickered. Ebony rolled her eyes and tried to walk over to where Neville was trying to get himself off the floor but she was grabbed by the wrist. Crabbe pulled her towards him. "Aww, look Goyle. She cares about the filthy bloodtraitor."

"Don't. Call. Him. That." She said through gritted teeth.

"Or what? What are you going to do about it? Because I'm sure mummy would love to hear about the filth her daughter hangs around with at school." Ebony swung her free arm at him but he ducked out of the way. He then twisted her arm behind her back causing her to cry out in pain.

"Not so tough now are we?" Goyle said in a mocking tone. The two boys roared with laughter

"Leave her alone." Crabbe turned to see Draco walking out of a nearby shop. Ebony yanked her wrist out of his grasp just as Neville returned to her side. All of them stared at Draco, confused by his intervention. "What?" He snapped, "She's not worth the effort, neither of them are. Filthy blood traitors." Draco sneered. He stalked off and the other two boys followed , not before Goyle spat at them. Ebony glared into the back of Draco"s head.

She hated him. Not all the time. He was alright when they weren't at school. They had a laugh together when their family had dinner and they were told to leave the room so that the 'grown-ups could talk.' But at school he was different. To put it lightly , he was a little shit. He claimed he had a reputation to uphold. Ebony didn't think that was much of an excuse.

Neville patted her arm. "Are you ok?"

"Fine. They're just dickheads." Ebony looked at him. His hand had started off on her arm in a comforting way but he was now somewhat clinging on for dear life. Her eyes trailed down to his knees. "You're bleeding!" She said, pointing at the rips in his trousers that were soaked in blood. Neville looked down too.

"Oh. Would you look at that. Mild inconvenience."

"Are you serious?"

"No. Actually it hurts quite a lot." He said, wobbling and tightening his grip on her arm. Ebony could see now that his grin was much more of a grimace and the colour had drained from his face.

"You need to sit down, you're very pale." Ebony helped him hobble over to a bench and sat him down. "I'm going to find Professor McGonagall, you wait here. Don't try and stand up and shout really loud if you need me." Neville began to laugh and Ebony frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," He said , still chuckling. "It's just nice to see you all stressed and concerned for once. That's usually my job." Ebony pouted at him but soon broke into a smile.

"I'll be right back you idiot." He stuck his tongue out at her.

...

"How're your knees?"

"They've been better."

They were sat in the hospital wing. Neville had both his knees wrapped up. Turns out he had managed to do a considerable amount of damage despite not falling that far. Madam Pomfrey had insisted he stay in overnight.

Ebony looked over to Madam Pomfrey's desk. She was giving her the polite 'its time for you to go now' look. Ebony sighed. "I think Madam Pomfrey wants me to leave." She said. Neville sighed too.

"Wish I didn't have to stay here, I'm missing the Halloween feast."

"I know but I tried my best to convince her." She replied, giving him a sympathetic smile. She stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya."

Ebony made sure to smile at Madam Pomfrey in her way out.

...

The Halloween feast was as grand as ever but Ebony couldn't enjoy it. She was sat with Lavender and Parvarti but she wasn't really paying attention to their conversation. They weren't the same as Neville. She had tried to convince Madam Pomfrey to let Neville down to the feast but the woman was stubborn, the care of her patients came first and silly things like feasts didn't matter.

Ebony was glad when it was over. She just wanted to go to bed. It was draining trying to talk to people you didn't really know that well. Despite the fact that she had shared a dorm with the two girls for three years, their friendship hadn't really got past homework questions. Ebony knew very little about them so small talk topics ran out pretty quickly.

As they reached the portrait hole however, the crowd of students stopped moving.

"What's going on?" Lavender asked. Ebony shrugged and tried to see what was going on ahead.

"Let me through I'm head boy. Excuse me." Percy Weasley pushed through the crowd towards the portrait. "Someone go get Dumbledore." It was then the crowd went silent and a chill filled the air.

Ebony stood on her tiptoes and looked in between the heads of students. She gasped.

"What is it?" Lavender whispered.

"The fat lady's gone."

...

The Gryffindors had been sent down to sleep in the great hall while the teachers searched the school. Ebony grabbed a sleeping bag in the corner by herself and curled up.

Sirius Black. She had never quite believed the story that he was the dark lord's second in command. That was her mother and if anyone threatened that position then her mother would be the murderer. None of it made sense. She had never met Sirius but she knew he had been disowned and she usually thought that meant someone was a good person. Getting burned off the family tree meant you had common sense and didn't believe all the pureblood bullshit that everyone rambled on about constantly. What he had apparently done to the Potters baffled her, didn't add up. She could question it. But he had done this. He had come into the school and slashed the fat lady's portrait. That was a fact that couldn't be ignored. Something felt wrong. Very wrong.