Author's Notes: The Rotten Writer, here again. Yes, I'm still alive. I have no excuses for taking a month to update that I haven't already used so I'll skip that portion, apologize, and move on.

I wanted to move some things along with the third year backdrop getting to more of the non-canon material that I had planned. Also, since I took so long I made sure that this was the longest chapter to date coming in at just shy of 19k words in length.

Disclaimer: I still own nothing of the HP franchise and if I did I'd probably disavow any relation to the last book. Seriously, that thing went off the rails at that point.

Soul Scars Part Three

The Greengrass Problem

By,

Rtnwriter

It'd taken weeks of near constant movement, ever further North, but finally, he crested a small hill and stopped, looking down at the valley spread out below him. The village wasn't very large, one main street running through the center of it, lined with shops and small businesses. A handful of smaller streets and alleys branched off of the main thoroughfare with a few residences and some other, more specialized businesses. There was a small train platform to one side and there, further to the North, its towers just visible above the trees, stood his destination.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A flood of memories crashed over him, a tidal wave of images and emotions that threatened to roll him under and sweep him away as he sat, right there in the dirt, and struggled to hold it all in. Eventually, he gave up trying to contain it and instead embraced it, surrendered to it.

He threw back his large, shaggy head, and howled. The sound echoed hauntingly across the valley, drifting past candlelit windows, under eaves, and through the leaves and branches of the trees. Every being that heard that howl shivered, from the witches and wizards in the sleepy little village, to the centaurs in the forest, the elves hard at work in the castle, and one rat, where he lay, quivering in terror on a pillow in the third floor boys dorm in Gryffindor tower.

Lowering his head, Sirius Black stood and began to amble his way down the hill, his tail waving lazily behind him as he began search for a warm place to bunk down for the night.

He could plan a murder better after a good nights sleep.

#####

Daphne slowly opened her eyes, blinking several times before she groaned quietly and sat up in bed. It happened again, she realized as she around the empty bed. Hermione and Susan had gotten up and left without waking her. She would have frowned, but she locked her feelings down, instead, slamming her Occlumency shields in place so as not to let slip over the bond how hurt she was by the more and more frequent absences of her bond mates.

A month into the new school year and she more and more often found herself waking up without the comforting presence of the girls that she'd become accustomed to over the last two years. When she asked them about it, however, both Hermione and Susan were tight lipped on the matter, refusing to elaborate on why, or just said it was 'nothing'.

On several different occasions, she'd come downstairs for their morning training to find Neville and her three bond mates sitting with their heads together, talking in low voices and, as she approached, they suddenly went silent or seemed to switch subjects before she could hear what it was they were saying.

The feelings of guilt and anxiety that she felt coming from Hermione and Susan further reinforced the suspicion that they were talking about her, or something that concerned her. She didn't know what was going on, and she didn't like it in the slightest. One small part of her realized that this must have been how Harry felt whenever he thought about what they'd been hiding from him right until they told him about the scars.

Sighing, she got out of bed and reached for her wand to cast a glamour across her body to hide the scars. A tingling sensation washed over her entire body as the magic flowed across her skin and she let out a little shiver at the feeling before it faded and she made her way over to the showers, quickly going about her morning rituals. Twenty minutes later, showered, teeth and hair brushed, she came back into the dorm to get dressed for the day.

A grimace twisted her face as she dressed, thinking about what she had waiting for her that day. It was the first Hogsmeade weekend, and Malfoy, true to his word, had written to his father, who had obviously spoken to hers. Two days after classes started she received a letter from Lord Greengrass informing her that she was now required to attend specific meals with the Malfoy Heir, as well as accompanying him on all Hogsmeade weekends. Luckily, he had not given permission for the blond git to take any liberties with her person, something she would have felt grateful for if she didn't know it was only to hide her scars. If the scars became common knowledge, her value would decrease, and her father wouldn't be able to get as much for the sale of her contract.

As she dressed in a light colored blouse and long, dark skirt, she focused her attention on the bond she could feel linking her to Harry and the other girls. Despite the issues that currently plagued them, the three presences of her bond mates in her mind always comforted her. Sensing their emotions, feeling what they felt soothed her frayed nerves in a way that nothing else could. As such, it was with no little sense of dismay that she found all three of them had erected their own Occlumency shields, muting their emotions to such an extent that she couldn't tell what they were feeling at all.

It was like someone kicked her in the gut. Not only were they talking behind her back, now they had taken to actively hiding their emotions from her. Part of her wanted to cry. Part of her wanted to rage. Part of her wanted to crawl back into bed while another part wanted her to run to them and beg to know what she did wrong and what she needed to do to fix it.

She did none of those things.

She had her orders from the Head of her family, and as much as she hated him and what he was making her do, she was still a traditionally raised daughter of a Most Ancient and Noble House. She would do her duty to her House to the best of her ability. In this case, that meant spending the day in the village with Draco Malfoy.

Finally finished dressing when she pulled on a simple pair of black flats, she grabbed her wand and headed downstairs to find her friends sitting near the fire with their heads together. Barely sparing them a glance, she walked across the common room with all the calm and grace she could muster and exited without a word spoken to anyone, leaving three sets of eyes worriedly watching her departing figure.

#####

Susan looked over to her other bond mates after the portrait closed behind Daphne, concern in her eyes. Harry was looking at Hermione, whose eyes were still fixed on the closed portrait, a pained expression on her face.

"Are you sure we can't bring her into this?" Susan practically begged. "I'm sure she could help."

"We can't, Susan," Harry told her, turning his luminescent gaze toward her. "You know we can't"

"But this is too much like when we wouldn't tell you-"

"And you girls had a good reason for not telling me," he cut her off. "You kept quiet for too long, but you did have a good reason. And we have an even better reason for not including her in these discussions, we talked about this on the first day of class, remember?"

Susan's face fell, but she, reluctantly, nodded.

"I know," she muttered despondently. "If her father asks her what we might be planning she would be duty bound to tell him everything." She frowned a moment later. "But we haven't actually found anything," she burst out, frustrated. "All the laws support her father with this. He owns her as her Head of House."

"And all this, ruining his own daughters life just for some gold, is completely legal," Hermione snarled, turning back to them, finally.

"Why isn't that a solution?" Neville suddenly asked, causing the three of them to focus their attention on him.

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"Why can't you bring a betrothal offer to her father?" he clarified his question. "It would solve all of this in one move. You've got more than enough money to best pretty much any offer he might receive from one of the other families and you actually have Daphne's well being in mind. So, why can't you just offer a contract to fix everything here?"

Harry scowled at that, his entire countenance darkening even as the air around them grew heavy and his eyes gleamed brighter and brighter with each passing moment.

"Because it's disgusting, for one thing," he spat, furiously. "Treating women like… like merchandise to be bought and sold on a whim." A low growl erupted from his throat and he took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. "I'm sorry," he said to Neville and Susan who were both frowning at him. "It's a part of the culture that you were both born with, and I don't mean to insult your traditions, but that's all alien to me. I just can't stomach it."

"Betrothal contracts are important," Neville said, calmly. "They're meant to safeguard the bride and groom and their families when used with the agreement of all involved. That's how they're supposed to work, and when I'm ready to marry I will happily negotiate a contract with the brides Head of House. But you're right that how Lord Greengrass is going about things is disgusting. So, we're in agreement there."

"How?" Harry demanded. "How is a contract requiring two people to marry supposed to safeguard anything? We've been looking at all of this for two months now and I still don't see how they can be considered a good thing."

Neville sighed, leaning back in his seat and closed his eyes as he tried to think of how best to explain it to his friend. Harry, Susan, and Hermione sat and watched him, his brows furrowed in thought for several minutes before he opened his eyes and looked toward Harry.

"Historically, betrothal contracts have been used to bring adversarial families together, to prevent or end feuds, or to increase political and economic power," he said, slowly. "Which, I know, sounds about as romantic as watching grass grow, but family is extremely important in our world, and our duty to our family comes first, before anything else. Aside from those points I mentioned it's also about continuing bloodlines. A contract helps to clearly define what is exchanged and what each family gets out of the union. It outlines the expectations of both parties in a way that can't be argued or ignored and they're usually magically binding so they can't be betrayed without some really severe consequences.

"Contracts can include how many children are expected from the couple and within what time frame they should be expected. It helps encourage the two families to support each other in the political arena as well as in personal aspects. If the sibling of a spouse is attacked or harmed, the other spouse, and their family, will respond as well, so that helps safeguard the individuals through threat of retribution. Yes, contracts have been, and still are being used by some families without their children's agreement, and in some cases even without their knowledge, but that is because of the laws that define children as property of their Head of House, not because of the use of contracts in general. So, while there are downsides, there's still a lot of good that contracts can be used for, for individual Houses and for the wizarding world as a whole."

Harry and Hermione thought that over for a moment before Harry's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"We're going to get that changed too, right?" he asked in regard to the laws about children and Neville have him a firm nod, his eyes hard and determined.

"Count on it."

Silence fell for a minute before it was broken by Susan.

"What else?" she asked, then hastened to clarify when all three of her friends gave her a confused look. "You said that contracts were disgusting, 'for one thing'," she reminded them, her eyes fixed on Harry. "That implies that you have other reasons. So, what else?"

Harry sighed, thinking over his other reasons for a moment.

"You know I've never been completely comfortable with how this bond happened. We weren't given a choice. Dumbledore stuck me with my relatives and I had no choice in that, either. All my life, I've not had many choices that haven't been made for me by others. I won't take that choice of who to marry away from her."

Susan and Hermione shared a look, each thinking something similar. Hermione was saddened that Susan had been right. On the train to school, Hermione almost blurted out that Daphne didn't need to worry about being cast out of her family, and thus, being unable to find work after school or a decent husband, because they were already going to marry Harry, as it stood. Obviously, Harry had not come to that same conclusion, that their marriage to him was an inevitability.

He had acknowledged, in the past, that their close relationship might develop into something more, in the future, but obviously he didn't seem to think that was a likely occurrence. He didn't seem to realize that the emotional closeness they shared was very nearly guaranteed to foster feelings of love for each other.

Of course, Hermione argued as she considered this new revelation, she couldn't honestly say that she was in love with him, either, and given his upbringing, he was still the least equipped of the four of them to recognize love, anyway. She knew she cared about him. She knew that she worried about him, and her other bond mates. She knew that she wanted him to be happy and that she always wanted to be a part of his life.

She blinked, slightly startled by the direction her thoughts had taken and quickly analyzed them again for a moment before her eyes widened in a moment of stunned realization.

Was she already falling in love with Harry Potter?

"So, since her wishes are unimportant to her father already, I have no wish to be compared to him. I wouldn't offer a contract unless there were absolutely no other option, and not without Daphne's approval," Harry was saying as Hermione snapped out of her musings and tuned back into reality and the continuing conversation taking place around her. Harry grimaced. "That being said, I have actually had a contract drawn up by my Account Manager, just in case. But it probably won't matter anyway, I seriously doubt Daphne has any more desire to be stuck in a contract with me than she does anyone else."

The incredulous looks on the other's faces would have told him how little they believed that last statement, but he'd turned away to look into the fire when he admitted that he already had a contract drawn up, not wanting to see the disappointment he expected to find in the girls eyes at that admission.

"Well," Neville started, drawing Harry's attention away from the fire as he stood up. "I need to head down to breakfast before the carriages start leaving for Hogsmeade," he said in an apologetic tone of voice. "I need some new quills and ink. Did you guys want me to pick up anything while I'm there?"

Neville had tried to argue against going to the village, saying that he was perfectly happy to stay there with them, but they'd quickly disabused him of that notion and insisted that he shouldn't miss a Hogwarts rite of passage because of them.

Susan and Harry both shook their heads, but Hermione nodded. "I do too, and some more parchment," she admitted as she went to stand from her own spot on the sofa beside Susan. "Let me run up to get some Galleons for yo-"

"Don't worry about it," Neville waved her off. "I can cover it, no problem."

Hermione huffed out a breath and glared at their friend. "Neville, I can't ask you to do that. They're my supplies, I should pay for them."

"You're not asking me, I'm offering."

"But-"

"I'm not kidding."

"Neville-"

"Oh for the love of… look, if it means that much to you, you can owe me for it, okay?"

Hermione's response died when Harry suddenly jerked in his seat and his head whipped around so fast that a series of popping noises came from his neck to stare intently at Neville.

"What was that?" he asked in a sharp tone that had the Lord Longbottom literally taking a step back as brilliantly glowing green eyes fixed on him.

"Ummm…"

"Harry?" Susan asked, and was subsequently ignored as the dark haired wizard rose from his seat with all the smooth grace of a predator closing in on his prey.

"What was that you said?" he demanded, insistently.

The girls shard another look, puzzled over the emotions leaking through Harry's Occlumency shields and across their bond. A mixture of anxious anticipation, hesitant hope, and mingled fear and concern.

"J-just that Hermione can owe me for the quills… and stuff," Neville stammered, slightly taken aback by the intense behavior of his friend.

Harry stood, still as a statue, for several moments as his mind latched onto something and began whirling at high speed, dizzying thoughts flitting past his consciousness, one after another, until a slow grin spread across his face.

"Neville, you are a bloody genius!" he suddenly shouted as he darted forward and yanked Neville into a rough hug, actually lifting the taller boy off of the ground in his enthusiasm. "That's it," he crowed, gleefully. "That's it, you're amazing!"

Harry suddenly let go of Neville, oblivious to his friend dropping to the ground in his surprise as he turned and sprinted toward the portrait hole, calling out a hurried, "gotta go check something, see you later," over his shoulder moments before he vanished, leaving three very confused friends behind him.

"What the hell just happened?" Neville asked from his comfortable and, more importantly, safe spot on the carpet in front of the fire. Susan and Hermione both just shook their heads in bemused confusion for a moment before they shot to their feet and scrambled off after their, apparently, insane bond mate.

"Here we go again with the running," Neville muttered before he leveraged himself to his feet and joined in on the chase.

With his longer legs and better overall fitness over the girls, Neville quickly caught up and fell into step with them as they raced their way through the castle. They occasionally caught glimpse of Harry's figure ahead of them as they ran, until they eventually caught up to see him entering an empty classroom just off of the Great Hall with Blaise Zabini right behind him. Before the door swung closed, the three of them slipped into the room and Neville closed the door firmly behind him before turning his attention back to the rest of the room.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Blaise asked, carefully studying Harry who was leaning against the teachers desk as he caught his breath.

"Blaise, I need your help, and while I'd like it if you wanted to help just to help a friend… I'll be honest, this would go a long way toward getting you back in my good books, if that helps influence your decision." Harry said as calmly as he could despite the near manic grin that was still twisting his lips.

The perpetually unruffled Slytherin arched an aristocratic brow and gestured for him to continue.

"I," Harry started then stopped and glanced at the girls and Neville who were all three eyeing him with no small amount of concern and confusion and then corrected himself, "we, need your help with a plan, but how we go about it depends on one thing. What do you know, or how much can you find out, about wizarding life debts?"

#####

The late afternoon sunlight in the village of Hogsmeade was a welcome thing. It wasn't particularly warm, but it was just enough to take some of the chill out of the air and it warmed the skin of his face and arms as Neville leaned back on a small bench set off the main street across from the local tavern and pub, the Three Broomsticks. Neville tilted his head back, lifting a dark glass bottle in one hand and let a mouthful of warmed butterbeer slide down his throat.

He swallowed and let out a long sigh before he set the mostly full bottle on the cobblestones by his foot and observed the village around him. People walked back and forth, a few locals, and more than a few students from third year up to a pair of seventh year prefects that he could see patrolling near the far end of the street. Students from every house, most without their uniforms to advertise which House they belong to, entered and exited shops, some with bags on their arms bulging with purchases while others strolled arm in arm with a significant other. Friends in groups small and large laughed and joked and chatted happily as they went about their day.

Idly, he wondered if any of them had to deal with the kind of crap that Harry and his girls had to deal with. Obviously, everybody had problems in life, he wasn't stupid and more than understood that everyone probably felt that their own problems were of Earth shaking importance. But Dark Lords? Deadly monsters? Escaped Criminals? Other than Aurors and maybe Dragon handlers, Neville didn't think that most people had to deal with the kinds of things that his friends found themselves stuck with.

He sighed again and let his head fall back to look up at the blue sky hanging over him, his arms spread out across the back of the bench. He was just slipping into a daydream about a simple, quiet life, one without the rush of danger and a mystery to solve, when he suddenly sat up, quickly, as he heard a quiet 'woof' from somewhere near his knee.

Sitting calmly on the stones beside him was, probably, the largest black dog that Neville had ever seen, barring Fluffy, of course. The Neville that he had been before befriending Harry would have jumped up and run in terror at the sight of the animal, if he'd managed to do so without tripping over his own feet. One glance at the beast immediately brought to mind tales of the Grim, the spectral dog thought to be an omen of death that was probably more urban legend than based in any kind of fact.

But he wasn't that Neville, anymore. He'd spent the last two years with friends that had done wonders to build up his confidence and self-esteem and he quickly quashed that instinctive desire to run as he took a moment to observe the animal. Despite its worrisome size, it was extremely thin, ribs easy visible along its sides, long shaggy fur matted and tangled with dirt, twigs, and bits of leaves. Its eyes were dark, warm, and seemed possessed of an unusual degree intelligence that he hadn't at all expected on first spotting the dog.

"Hullo," he said after several minutes passed where the two simply studied each other in silence.

The dog huffed out a breath again and tilted its head to the side in that curious manner apparently shared by all breeds of canine.

"You're a nice boy, aren't you?" Neville muttered, carefully holding out one hand, palm up for the dog to sniff. He practically held his breath as the large head inched closer to his hand, dark nose twitching as warm gusts of air blew across his fingers.

"OH, YUCK!" Neville cried out a moment later when a long, pink tongue slid across the palm of his hand, thoroughly coating it in dog slobber.

With his face twisted in disgust, Neville wiped his hand clean as best he could on his robes while the dog fell over onto its side as a strange, strangled sounding noise escaped it. Neville was fairly certain it was laughing at him.

"I can't believe I'm getting laughed at by a dog," he grumbled, glaring at the clearly amused animal. The dog stopped writhing around on the ground a moment later and, before Neville could react, it grabbed his bottle of butter beer in its jaws by the neck and tilted its head back, quickly drinking down the entire bottle in a matter of seconds.

The loud belch it let out after dropping the now empty bottle served to shake Neville from his surprise and he gave the dog a resigned seeming glare.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear you belonged to the Weasley twins," he said ruefully, ignoring how the beasts ears pricked forward at his words. "Are you hungry?" he asked, figuring it was likely, based on how thin the animal was, even if it wouldn't understand the words themselves. To his surprise the large black head moved up and down in a clear nod and the dog sat again by the bench, looking expectantly at Neville.

"All right, stay here, okay?" Neville asked as he stood. The dog nodded again and laid down by the bench, resting its head on its forepaws as it settled in to wait. Neville shook his head, bemused by the dogs behavior, but quickly made his way across the street and entered the Three Broomsticks.

Entering the tavern, Neville was immediately struck by the noise. Every table and booth was packed with students from the school, eating, drinking, talking, and laughing loudly in order to be heard over the others in the large, open room. On one side, Neville saw a number of familiar faces from around Gryffindor tower. Ron, Dean, and Seamus sat at one table, talking loudly over the noise from the table next to them where the entire Quidditch team, minus Harry, sat, arguing over tactics and different plays. Oliver was in the midst of gesturing wildly as he used his hands to illustrate a play to the three chasers, commonly referred to as the Flying Foxes of Gryffindor.

Several 'Puffs sat at a few nearby tables including Cedric Diggory and Hannah Abbot, who was in deep discussion with a few older Ravenclaws that he didn't immediately recognize on sight. As he started to wend his way through the crowd of tables and students toward the bar, he spotted Malfoy in a darkened corner of the room, holding court as near a half a dozen Slytherins from their year sat near him, clearly hanging on his every word. Sitting next to him, her face carefully neutral, was Daphne. Nothing about her expression or posture gave anything away, but Neville felt that he knew her well enough to detect how disgusted she was with her present situation.

He scowled at the sight, but resisted the very Gryffindor urge to stomp over and cause a scene. Daphne wouldn't appreciate it, and, as much as he hated to admit it, he was hopelessly out numbered. Instead, he took a deep, calming breath, and refocused his attention on his goal of acquiring something to eat for his new furry friend.

After much prodding, dodging, ducking, and weaving, Neville finally found a spot at the bar and smiled at one of the primary reasons for the taverns continued popularity. Madam Rosmerta was of an unknown age, but Neville remembered stories from Amelia talking about the owner and operator of the tavern who had been there when she was in school. She was beautiful, curvy, and dressed to show off her figure in the best possible way, somehow managing not to come off as tawdry or slutty in the process.

She alone drew a large portion of the male population of the school and the amazing food and drink on offer drew in the rest, as well as the girls, meaning that it was one of the most popular and successful businesses in the entire village.

"What can I get you?" she asked, kindly, a smile on her plump lips and her eyes dancing in amusement as Neville blushed and struggled to keep his eyes in safe areas.

"Ummm… I've found a stray, outside," he muttered, just barely heard over the noisy crowd and Madam Rosmerta leaned forward to better hear him, giving him a stellar view of her impressive cleavage and doing nothing to calm or settle his nerves in the process. "I w-was hoping I -c-c-could get a plate of s-stewed beef for him?"

Rosmerta's smile was genuine and wide and she scurried into the back, returning quickly with a plate piled high with beef and chicken and an empty bowl as well which she set on the bar without a word. When Neville reached for his purse to pay she stopped him, reaching across to place one hand on his wrist.

"No charge," she said. "I think it's right nice of you, trying to take care of something like that, so this one's on the house."

He smiled and carefully picked up the plate and the bowl, thanking her profusely before working his way back across the tavern to the exit.

The dog was still lying right where he'd left it and it lifted its head, expectantly when the door opened and Neville stepped out, its nose twitching madly in the direction of the plate he held in one hand.

Smiling at the animal's reaction, he set the plate down, the dog's jaws snapping up bites of beef and chicken even before he managed to set it completely on the cobblestones. Placing the empty bowl beside the plate, he tapped it with his wand, muttering an incantation, and moments later the bowl was filled with clean, cold, water.

"No more butterbeer for you, pup," he muttered, smiling again as one ear twitched in his directions. "Last thing we need is a drunk dog wandering the village."

While the dog ate, Neville inspected it more closely, all trace of his initial nervousness long gone. The dog had no collar, or anything to indicate that he belonged to someone. He considered the possible options open to him, and by the time the plate was cleaned of every bit of meat, Neville had come to a conclusion.

"How would you like to meet a friend of mine?" he asked. "He's a lot like you, big and scary looking, but a big softy on the inside. I think you'll like him."

A cheerful sounding 'wuff' greeted that pronouncement, so Neville took it as agreement and took the dishes back inside the tavern to return them to Madam Rosmerta with another round of thanks. When Neville, once again, found his way outside, he started back toward the castle, chatting all the way as the dog barked happily, bounding around him, but never getting more than ten feet away throughout the entire trip.

#####

Late in the afternoon of their first Hogsmeade weekend, Harry found himself aimlessly wandering the castle. He was doing his best to calm his mind and relax. Normally, he would achieve this by going flying, but the presence of the Dementors outside the school had cast an unpleasant chill over the grounds. Even one step outside the castle and Harry could dimly hear screaming in the back of his mind that he knew would get louder and louder the closer he got to the property boundaries. Thus, one of his favorite pastimes had been turned into an unpleasant prospect at best, and a potential disaster at worst.

He frowned, stopping by a window on the fifth floor, and caught sight of three of the horrific wraiths floating above the Forbidden Forest in the distance. The sight of them turned his mind away from Daphne, Sirius Black, his bond with the girls, and any other concern that he had and focused his thoughts in one direction.

Professor Remus Lupin, Moony to his friends, according to his mother's journals, had rapidly become one of the most popular teachers in the entire school. Over the course of the month of September, he'd heard many a female student, from each year group, comment on the professor's warm brown eyes, his calm, soothing voice and demeanor, and any number of other characteristics unique to the worn man. It was his practical teaching method and extensive knowledge of Defense, however, that endeared him to the male half of the school, with the exception of some of the Slytherin students.

Harry, in particular, found himself looking forward to each Defense lesson with a sense of eager anticipation. Even when he was being held back by the inherent limitations of his wand blank, Harry still consistently outperformed every other student in that class and the Professor had not been stingy with his praise in the slightest.

Which made his frustration over last weeks lesson even more pronounced. Professor Lupin had given the day over for another practical lesson, leading their entire third year class on a short trip through the castle to the staff room where there was, apparently, a Boggart waiting for them. After a short interaction with Professor Snape, the Potions Master left, his black robes billowing about him as the class turned their attention back to their Defense Professor.

Laughter rang throughout the room as a mummy tripped over its own bandages and started to unravel, a gigantic spider suddenly found itself falling about as roller skates appeared on the end of each one of its hairy legs, a banshee lost her voice before she could unleash her deadly scream, a clown, complete with colorful makeup and gigantic floppy shoes, transformed into one of those plastic, inflatable, blow up toys with the weighted bottom that you could never knock over.

On the lesson went, as, one at a time, each student faced their worst fear, and made fun of it. Finally, the line of students dwindled until it was only him and his friends left and Harry scowled at the memory of the professor cutting between him and the boggart, just as he'd started forward to confront it.

"Why wouldn't he let me face it?" Harry muttered darkly to himself. There was no answer forthcoming, standing there by the window, so, in a fit of indignation, he decided to find out for himself.

Spinning around on one heel he stalked back the way he'd come down the corridor, his strides quick and determined and his left hand resting comfortably on the hilt of the sword strapped to his waist to help control the blade from flopping around as he moved. The feel of the weapon beneath his hand sparked a thought he'd had more than once over the course of the previous summer and he mentally added it to his list of things to discuss with the Defense Professor.

It only took a little over five minutes for Harry to make his way through the castles many corridors until he found himself standing outside the Defense office and, before he could second guess himself, he lifted his right hand and knocked firmly on the door, before dropping his arm back to his side to wait.

A minute later the door swung open and tired, brown eyes regarded Harry curiously for a moment.

"Harry? I mean, Lord Potter, what can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you might be free to talk a bit," Harry said as calmly as he could. No need to sound antagonistic when he was merely frustrated.

The Professor smiled, thin lips turning up slightly at the corners and he stepped back as he pulled the door open wider and gestured with one hand for Harry to step in.

Entering the room, Harry looked around curiously, noting the differences from when Lockhart had taught the year before. Gone were the beaming portraits that had once covered the walls. In their place there were illustrations of different dark or dangerous creatures, lists of dangerous spells and curses and their counters and even a poster for a dueling tournament from forty years previously proclaiming an, apparently, long anticipated match between a man whose name Harry honestly wasn't sure how to pronounce and one Filius Flitwick.

It'd been two weeks after getting out of the hospital wing the year before that Harry had even noticed that Lockhart was missing and the twins had filled him in that Lockhart had made a run for it in the middle of the night the same evening that Harry had faced the Basilisk in the Chamber. No one really knew what happened to him or where he went, but only a few of the girls in the school really cared. The rest were either male, or had long since figured out that he was a hopeless fraud not worthy of any respect or admiration.

"So, Lord Potter, what can I do for you?" Professor Lupin asked as he sat behind his desk and gestured for Harry to take a seat across from him.

"Please, I know the professors prefer to use my title, and I'm slowly getting used to that and my responsibilities, but you were friends with my parents, right? I think you can call me Harry, at least in private?"

Lupin smiled, and in that instant he seemed twenty years younger as the scars across his left cheek shifted with the movement in his face and his eyes lit up with warmth and cheer.

"Harry, then. And, in private, I insist you call me Remus, or even Moony if you prefer."

Despite his frustration, Harry couldn't help a smile of his own at that and nodded.

"I'd imagine you'd like to hear more about your parents?" Moony started. "I've more than a few stories I can share. James and I were friends from our very first trip on the Hogwarts Express."

"No, actually," Harry said, cutting in. "Well… actually yes, I'd love to hear more about them. But that wasn't why I wanted to talk to you right now, honestly."

Moony arched a brow curiously and gestured for him to continue with one hand as Harry started to fidget nervously in his seat.

"I was wondering about class the other day. You let almost everyone face the boggart but when it was my turn…"

"You want to know why I stopped you from facing it?

Harry nodded.

Sighing Remus leaned back in his seat and laced his fingers together, placing his palms on his chest in a move that reminded Harry strongly of Dumbledore.

"You think… what… that I felt you were too weak, maybe?"

Harry shrugged.

"I stopped you from facing the boggart, not because I was trying to protect you, but because I was hoping to protect the rest of the class."

Harry blinked in surprise and his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Without knowing in advance, I could only guess that your boggart might become a certain dark wizard that most people refuse to name. I felt that seeing something like that might have sent the rest of the class into a panic and wanted to avoid that possibility."

"I hadn't even considered Voldemort, really," Harry muttered, staring blankly at the edge of the large desk in front of him while his mind cast back to that day and the thoughts he'd considered for what his boggart might turn into. "I was thinking of the Dementor, actually, but I wasn't really sure about that, either."

Two prematurely greying brows rose slightly at that.

"That shows a level of maturity one might not expect from someone your age, Harry," Moony pointed out. "It takes a strong man to admit that his greatest fear, is fear."

"I'm not strong enough. I passed out around the Dementor on the train," Harry pointed out, bitterly. "No one else reacted so badly to them."

"That doesn't make you weak, and them strong," Remus told him, gently. "From what I've heard, you've had a far harder life than probably any other student in this school, and likely many of the professors as well, come to think of it. The thing about Dementors is that they suck out all the happiness in an area, forcing those affected by their presence to relieve their worst memories complete with the fear, pain, and hurt that comes with those memories. For most of those students, their bad memories are, simply put, not that bad. From what I've been told, your first two years here were a lot more painful than most would have dealt with at this point, and I've heard rumblings that the years before weren't much better, though no details have been given," he added the last rather quickly when he noticed Harry's face darkening angrily.

Taking a deep breath, Harry let it out slowly, feeling the anger that had started to spark up ebb away until he felt he could speak without snapping.

"I really wish that people would ask me before sharing personal information like that," he grumbled.

"To be fair, Harry, I wasn't actually told anything specific about your life before school," Remus pointed out. "Just obliquely informed that it was less than ideal and that you struggled, still, with what happened. And, well, staff does have to be informed when there are special dispensations going on, such as the mind healer that has visited you regularly since the second term in your first year. I am not told any specifics of those meetings, nor is anyone else, but the staff is aware that said meetings take place."

He nodded thoughtfully at that, realizing the necessity of it objectively, even if he still didn't care for it.

"You said that you and my parents were friends," he said, changing the subject. "Mum's journals sure did mention you often enough that I can believe that."

Remus cracked a sad smile. "Yes, we were. We got into more than our fair share of trouble in these halls over our years here."

"If you were such good friends, why didn't you take me in when they died?" Harry asked. At the stricken look on the professor's face Harry hastened to add, "not meant to sound accusing. I was just suddenly curious and… well, Healer Gant has told me a hundred times at least that I shouldn't hold stuff like that in. If I didn't say something, in a few weeks or months I'd have likely worked myself into a lather over it until I blew my top… so I just figured I'd ask." Harry trailed off uncertainly, wondering just what possessed him to approach that particular question.

"Probably a good bit of advice, there." Remus sighed and leaned forward in his seat before speaking again. "In the months before your parents took you and went into hiding," he stated, "well… people were scared. You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters were running almost unchecked over the entire country. The Aurors were outmanned, fighting a losing battle with their hands tied behind their backs.

"While the Death Eaters were using lethal spells as well as the Unforgivables, the Aurors were still under mandate to use only non-lethal spells in fighting back against the enemy."

"But that's just stupid!" Harry blurted out. "When people are trying to kill you, you can't stick to stunning and disarming."

"You know that and I know that, but the Ministry has never approved of potentially lethal methods for their law enforcement personnel. Especially since many of the Death Eaters were people like the Malfoy's, Black's, Lestrange's and so on. Many of the old houses that have seats on the Wizengamont were followers of the Dark Lord or at least Sympathizers and they didn't want to be facing Aurors acting with the intent to kill so they made sure to tie the Ministry up in red tape and minutiae."

Harry shook his head, grumbling under his breath about the general stupidity of wizards when Remus continued. "So, like I said, people were scared and the Death Eaters went nearly unchallenged. The Ministry wasn't very effective in combating them, corrupt as it was and infiltrated by spies and the Dark Mark was seen in the sky over a destroyed home nearly every day.

"People didn't know what to do, who to trust, or who to turn to. Dumbledore had started a sort of vigilante group to try and fight back. Your parents, Sirius, Peter, and I joined up right out of school. But as time went on, more and more of our operations started going wrong, and it became clear that we had a traitor in the Order."

Despite the serious turn of the conversation Harry found himself fascinated and drawn into the story, leaning forward in his seat to ensure he didn't miss a single word.

"We started losing members, almost weekly, and any organization started to fall apart. Your parents went into hiding and I was sent out of the country by Dumbledore to try to gather support from various factions, or at the very least, to try to convince them not to support You-Know-Who. I was still away that Halloween night, and I didn't even find out that the war was over until six days after the fact when I came back into the country."

The pained expression on the older man's face and the lost look in his eyes clearly showed how painful these memories still were for him, even with over a decade of time to dull them and Harry practically held his breath for fear that any distraction might break him from his story.

"When I left the country, my friends were alive, if scared and stressed. When I returned, three of them were dead and the fourth was in prison for their betrayal and murder and you were… gone. Dumbledore had already hidden you away. I petitioned the Ministry to take you in but… I have a condition that precludes me from being able to care for a child easily, especially a very young child that would have needed to rely on me for everything, so my petition was denied.

"I tried talking to Albus, but he assured me that you were safe." He blinked, his eyes focusing on Harry when the messy haired teen snorted loudly and his face twisted into a disgusted sneer.

"'Safe' isn't the word I would have used," Harry muttered, darkly.

Remus' response was so soft that Harry almost missed it. "So I hear." He raised a hand to forestall any potential outburst and went on without pause, "Again, I wasn't given details, but I have heard enough mutterings to understand that you did not have an easy time growing up. I'm in no place to demand you talk to me, as I understand it you've got plenty of people already making that offer. I'll listen if you want, but otherwise nothing more needs to be said."

Harry hesitated for a moment before he nodded again and leaned back in his seat.

"So you tried to take me in?" he said, urging the man to continue and Remus cracked another grin but obligingly went on.

"I did. It didn't work and I exhausted every way I could think of to find you. Whatever Dumbledore did, it really was extremely effective in ensuring that you were completely hidden from the wizarding world."

"So then what did you do?"

Remus grimaced at that. "Well, I'm ashamed to say that I lost myself for a number of years. Understand, Harry, I was grieving for the loss of, pretty much, my entire world. I had no family. I was an only child and my parents died years before when we were all still in school. James, Sirius, Peter, and Lilly. They were my family. And then you, once you were born. And in a single night it was all ripped away from me. I basically crawled into a bottle and didn't come back out any longer than I could possibly avoid. I'm not proud of that, but it happened, and I'm moving on. When Dumbledore got in touch with me and offered me the teaching post here… well, I couldn't turn that down and miss the opportunity to finally see you again and find out how you're doing."

Harry shrugged and held his arms out to his sides as if saying, 'well, here I am'.

"I'm not doing too bad, really. There's been some rough spots but I'm still alive." He turned his glowing gaze to meet the amber colored eyes of his professor who was studying him carefully, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"You brought up a valid point, earlier, Harry," he pointed out and Harry blinked, confused by the sudden shift.

"Huh?"

"The Dementors. They affect you far worse than most and that's a dangerous thing."

"I've been researching some way to fight them, honestly," Harry admitted with a shrug. "The library doesn't have much on Dementors though, and I haven't found a single curse that might work on them. I mean, do they have bones to break?" He shrugged again, looking defeated.

"Well, you wouldn't find any curses to affect Dementors," Remus said with a quiet chuckle. "There's only one known method of fighting off a Dementor, not killing it, as they appear to be functionally immortal for all intents and purposes, but simply driving them away. It's a highly advanced charm, actually, known as the Patronus Charm and usually isn't taught until NEWT classes as it is a very difficult charm and only a small percentage of adult wizards have the power or mental discipline to cast it."

"Can you teach it to me? Me and my friends?"

Remus blinked in surprise at the sudden, eager response and tried to let him down gently. Harry, like I said, it's a NEWT level charm that most adult wizards can't even do. At your age…" he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.

Harry growled, low in his throat as the light in his eyes grew brighter, causing Remus to lean away from the messy haired teen, apprehensively.

"Moony, in my first year I taught myself the Reductor, Incarcerous, the Summoning Charm, Blasting Hex, and several other third and fourth year charms, curses, and hexes. I've learned the Flame Whip spell, Bone Breaking hexes, and my friends and I almost have the Siege Engine spell down. That one is honestly a bit complicated and we haven't devoted a lot of time directly to working on that one, but I think that if we did, we'd have it figured out within a week."

As Harry rattle off his list, Remus'' eyes grew wider, and wider, until, finally," Siege Engine?" he blurted out. "What possible reason could you have for trying to learn that?"

Harry shrugged. "Someone's tried to kill me each year I've been at this school. Each year something crazy has been going on and there's a maniac out there that wants me dead. I felt it was in my best interest to learn as much as I could. Honestly, I already know most of the spells for this years Defense, the only thing I don't know already in your class is the creatures you've been showing us. Last year I fired off a three foot wide Reductor and it blew up my wand." Harry held out his hand, showing Remus the scars from his destroyed wand. "Please. There's Dementors at this school and I can't stand to be near them. I need to know this charm."

Remus studied Harry carefully for several moments before he let out a defeated sigh. "All right," he said. "We'll give it a try in a week or two, okay? I'm not making any promises that you'll be able to do this, but we'll see how it goes."

"And my friends?"

"You and your girls and Lord Longbottom are welcome to come to the lesson. I'll let you know when but I don't want you or any of them to get discouraged if you don't get this right away, or at all, understood? There is a reason it is a NEWT level charm."

Harry's beaming smile, Remus felt, was worth the promise of extra Defense lessons. From what he'd seen and heard both in class and from most of the other staff, Harry in particular had power to spare for the charm, the mental discipline, however, was going to be the real test.

#####

As Neville made his way toward the castle with a rake thin bear of a dog, Daphne suffered the prattlings of Malfoy and his cadre of sycophants, and Harry was busy interrogating their Defense Professor, Susan and Hermione had taken over a small table in the Hogwarts Library in the bushy haired one's favorite, out of the way corner, where there was little foot traffic and fewer distractions.

Susan quietly observed her bond mate as they worked. Hermione had half a dozen books spread out on the table in front of her, all of them covered in runes and diagrams of complex arrays far above their current work in the class. With one hand, she was writing copious notes as her eyes flitted from one book to another, and as she worked, her left hand was held up by the side of her head, two fingers gently rubbing a circle against her temple.

Susan counted them lucky that they'd been able to talk her out of accepting the Time Turned that Director Croaker had offered, and instead used their Head of House's suggestion to alternate which lesson Hermione attended for those that overlapped while collecting notes and the homework assignments from a classmate for the others. Despite that, after only a month of classes, Hermione was obviously feeling the strain of her workload. Susan felt there was more to it than just the class work, though.

She winced as a sudden spike of pain went through her head, bleeding over from the studious girls across from her and she let out a frustrated sigh.

"Drop the quill, Hermione," she demanded as she stood and started around the table.

"Wha-" Hermione looked up for a moment, eyes narrowed in pain, before turning back to her work. "I need to finish this," she mumbled distractedly. "Two feet on the Elder Futhark runic alphabet and a foot on arithmantic principles of predictive matrixes before I can focus on Daphne's problem."

"Put the quill down, 'Mione," Susan said in a far more commanding tone as she stopped behind the other girl and leaned down to take the quill from her hand. Despite her protests she eventually surrendered the quill and Susan carefully set it down to the side before she straightened back up.

"Susan, I have a lot of work to do," Hermione practically whined.

"And Harry and I can help you with Runes and Arithmancy. We both already finished those assignments while you were in Muggle Studies. Daphne needs to finish those too, and neither are due until Thursday. You can afford a few minutes break to relax and talk to me."

"I don't need to relax, I need to-"

"Your headache is hurting me too," Susan cut her off, "and I'll be honest, I'm getting worried. Harry and Daphne are distracted, they probably haven't noticed how often your head has been bothering you, but I have."

As she spoke, Susan had gently pulled on the other girls shoulder until she was leaning back in her seat. Strong fingers worked their way across Hermione's shoulders until her thumbs started kneading a tense knot of muscle just at the base of her neck, eliciting a small groan from the girl.

"It's not a big deal," Hermione tried, but trailed off as Susan's fingers worked their way up the column of her neck beneath the heavy mass of her hair. Reaching the base of her skull, Susan gently tilted Hermione's head back until she was leaning against the redheads abdomen, just beneath her breasts.

"Don't pretend it's nothing," Susan murmured as she pressed the tips of her fingers against the other girls scalp, gently moving across her head until she was rubbing soothing circles at both temples. "'Nothing' doesn't leave you with headaches as often as you've been getting them, and you can't even blame it on school stress," she added as Hermione opened her mouth, which snapped shut a moment later. "The headaches started not long after the nightmares over the summer, the ones where you wake up calling out for Daphne."

She arched a brow down at the other witch as Hermione tilted her head back, giving her a surprised look.

"I'm not as dumb as I look, 'Mione," she said, her tone slightly hurt. "I do pay attention to the people around me."

"No one has ever said that you're dumb, Susan. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that at all. I was just surprised because I thought I'd hidden it better than that."

"Why hide it at all?"

Hermione shrugged, lowering her chin until she was facing forward again as Susan's fingers continued to soothe her pained head.

"I don't know," she mumbled. "With Black escaping Azkaban, Harry still mad at us, all this stress with Daphne's father… I guess I just felt that some headaches were petty in comparison?"

"You don't exactly sound sure of that," Susan whispered, noting the questioning tone in her bond mate's voice.

Hermione squirmed a bit in her seat but didn't offer anything else and Susan couldn't help another frustrated sigh.

"Why is Harry upset with us?" she asked, suddenly.

"Because we didn't tell him about the scars," Hermione immediately replied and Susan shook her head, her long ponytail falling over her right shoulder to drape across her breasts.

"Not exactly," she disagreed. "He's upset because we've been pushing him to open up to us. We've been pushing him to share with us and to not hide things from us, but we haven't been doing the same thing. Daphne still keeps her past hidden. You and I have only shared small pieces of our lives as well. How can we keep expecting him to be open with us if we won't be open with him? Or with each other?"

Hermione considered that, her eyes slipping closed even as her teeth started worrying at her bottom lip.

Eventually she heaved out a sigh, the scents of honeysuckle and ivory polish that clung to Susan filling her nose as she breathed.

"We really haven't been going about all this very well, have we?" she muttered.

"No, probably not. But it's not like situations like ours come with an instruction manual, is it?"

Hermione snorted out a laugh, then took another deep breath of the relaxing scent of her bond mate before leaning her head back more against the girl behind her.

"Suggestions?" she asked.

Susan allowed herself a soft smile as she felt Hermione's pain ebb slightly through their bond, as well as the sense of acceptance flowing from the other girl.

"I don't know, really, other than sitting the others down and talking. I mean, we talk all the time, but obviously we're still holding back." She paused for a moment as Hermione made a wordless sound of agreement before she continued. "So, why don't you start with telling me about these headaches, or, why you really haven't mentioned them before."

Hermione groaned at that and her eyes opened to stare off into the distance as she thought. Susan kept quiet, letting her think even as her fingers continued a constant motion across the girls scalp and temples.

After a few minutes of silence, Hermione reached up and gently took hold of Susan's hands, pulling them away from her head and down, until she had to lean down to follow the pull, letting her chin rest atop the other witches tangled mass of curls. Without thinking, Hermione turned Susan's right hand over and pressed her lips to the dark slash of a scar that marked her wrist where the feather from Harry's wand had torn through his skin. She couldn't see it, due to the glamours they wore, but she could feel it against her lips, along with the smooth texture and the warmth of Susan's skin.

When her brain caught up to her actions Hermione felt a sudden heat bloom in her cheeks and, as calmly as she could, she moved her lips away from the other girls skin and let Susan fold her arms around her.

Susan was not privy to the fierce blush coloring Hermione's cheeks or to the tingling sensation that she could still feel in her lips, nor was Hermione aware of the delighted shiver that'd coursed its way down the redheads spine in that moment.

Hermione cleared her throat, carefully. "Thank you," she said, her voice far more of a breathy whisper than she'd intended. "That was helping, a lot, but it kind of made it hard to concentrate."

Susan tightened her grip around her friend for a moment in a brief hug before she let go and moved to take a seat next to Hermione instead of returning to her original seat on the other side of the table.

"So, headaches?" Susan prompted after she'd made herself comfortable, and both of them had gotten their blushing under control.

"I'm not entirely sure," Hermione admitted. "Everything I said was true. There's so much going on already this year that I didn't want to add to everyone's stress, but…" She trailed off, brow furrowed in thought and her teeth worrying at her bottom lip. "I just… I feel like they're connected to Daphne, somehow." She finally offered and Susan arched a brow at her again.

"Daphne, and Harry, for that matter, make my head hurt often enough, but I'm not sure it's in the same way you're implying," she said with a little grin.

Hermione laughed quietly for a moment, shaking her head in the negative.

"No," she said. "Not the same thing at all. I… since I woke up after being petrified… I can't look at Daphne. I can't talk to her, be around her, or even think about her without this… this… urgh!" She propped her elbows on the table and let her head drop onto her hands.

"There's something I'm missing," she groaned. "I should know something, or I'm forgetting something. I… it's… it's right there! It's like a word that's on the tip of my tongue but I just can't remember!"

Susan moved closer and wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, drawing her into a warm hug as she let one hand gently stroke her hair. Hermione practically sagged against her, eagerly accepting what was offered and the two sat in silence for several minutes entangled together.

When Susan finally pulled back, Hermione appeared a bit calmer, if still agitated.

"I think you should see Madam Pomfrey about this," she said as gently as she could and resisted the urge to sigh, again, when Hermione shook her head, her brown locks bouncing back and forth with the motion.

"I'll go get a headache reliever, but I really don't feel like this is something she'll be able to help with."

"'Mione, please-"

"No, Susan," Hermione said, firmly. "I… I promise, if it get's worse, I'll talk to her, I just don't feel like it's necessary right now."

As Hermione started packing up her work, Susan allowed herself the sigh she'd held back before and glared, half-heartedly, at her friend.

"What about talking to Daphne?" she tried.

Hermione shook her head. "I tried that," she admitted. "Daphne is insistent that she has no idea what I'm forgetting."

When she reached for the books, Susan reached out and stopped her.

"Go," she told her. "Get something for your head and go lay down for a while. I'll take care of these."

Hermione nodded, giving her a grateful smile before she grabbed her dragon hide bag and stood, slinging one strap over her shoulder. "Thank you, Susan, I'll see you at dinner?"

Susan nodded, smiling herself until the other girl disappeared around one of the bookshelves and she allowed the smile to twist into a grimace.

"Why?" she asked the empty air around her. "Why did I get to bond with three of the most stubborn people in the whole bloody world?" She shook her head and started collecting the books, a frown marring her face as she went about placing them back in their appropriate spots on the shelves.

By the time all the books were put away and she'd packed up her own bag, she had the glimmer of an idea in mind. Susan hesitated for a brief moment before she set her shoulders and moved quickly from the room, her stride determined as her feet carried her through the castle, down one flight of stairs, until she arrived outside a very specific door. Before she could talk herself out of her chosen course of action she lifted her right hand, fingers curled into a tight fist, and knocked firmly on the door three times.

"Come ahead," a voice called from inside the room and she grabbed the latch, pulling the door open before she stepped inside, closing it behind her.

"Miss Bones? Is there something that I can help you with?"

"I hope so, Professor. Do you have a few minutes? I have… an unusual problem."

#####

"Arrogant, filthy, disgusting son of a…" Daphne trailed off in the middle of her muttered litany of insults to growl angrily. The entire day bad been nothing but a frustrating waste of time. Walking around the village, going only to the shops that Malfoy had been interested in, meaning she saw only the joke shop, the Quidditch supply store, and Honeydukes.

At least she'd bought herself and the other girls a small supply of chocolate at the last one, but she had wanted to go look through Gladrags and Scrivenshafts, or even Tomes and Scrolls. But no. After the three shops Malfoy stopped at, the entire rest of the day was spent sitting in the Three Broomsticks listening to that arrogant git ramble on about how amazing and rich he was.

That would have been bad enough, but after a time he'd started whispering to her supposed details of the contract that their fathers were negotiating. The various clauses he mentioned made her skin crawl and her stomach twist into knots. What was worse, she had no trouble believing that her father would easily agree to any or all of them, for enough gold.

She'd spent the entire trip in the carriage back up to the castle stewing in the information he'd given. If he was being truthful… she stopped in the middle of the path leading up to the castle entrance, her hands clenched into fists and her eyes screwed shut as she fought back the urge to vomit. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was his smug smirk and the mocking, superior tone of his voice rang in her ears as, unbidden, his words rose to the forefront of her mind.

"Once we get back here after the Christmas break, you are going to belong to me. First night back, you will finally learn your place, on your knees, using that smart little mouth of yours to please your Master."

Daphne gagged and turned to the side, bending over at the waist even as her stomach heaved in disgust. She managed not to puke, but the effort left her sweating and shaking as she wiped her mouth with the back of one violently trembling hand.

"And Parkinson," she snarled as she straightened and started back on her way toward the castle. "Glaring at me as if I'm stealing the little shite from her or something. Bitch has zero self respect if she actually wants to be with him."

Pansy Parkinson had spent the entire time she'd sat with them in the tavern alternating between simpering and giggling at every other word that came out of Malfoy's mouth and trying to kill Daphne, simply by use of the heat of her gaze, alone. Daphne's own icy glare had caused the pug faced bitch to gulp nervously and focus her attention back on the blond ponce.

At one point during the day she'd seen Neville enter the tavern and was grateful to see the anger on his face at the sight of the Slytherin corner. That gratitude grew when he'd clenched his hands into fists and had stalked away to the bar. It had been obvious, to her, that he'd wanted to do or say something, but he knew better and he had managed to stop himself from making a scene. And, as much as a disappointment that it was that her bond mates couldn't come to the village like the rest of them, she'd honestly been relieved that Harry hadn't seen what Neville had. She honestly worried how much of the building would've remained standing after the nearly guaranteed magical outburst that would have poured off of the powerful wizard if he'd been forced to witness it.

As the day had worn on she'd wanted nothing more than to just leave and it had been the filth that Malfoy had spewed at her that'd finally had her leaving them behind, his mocking laughter following her all the way out of the tavern. She knew she'd be hearing about her behavior from her father, but at that moment she really couldn't have cared less. She'd just had to get away from Malfoy before she did something to the pig that would likely have come back to bite her in the worst possible way.

It wasn't until she reached the top of the steps leading into the entrance hall that she found herself presented with a conundrum. She wanted to see her friends. She wanted to spend time in the presence of the people she knew she was coming to love, an admission her mother had set in motion the year before that still frightened the hell out of her.

But, she was still mad at them. They were planning before her back, she knew it. At the least, they were talking about her and she really didn't like feeling left out. For two years, they had been a part of each others lives, so why were they pulling away from her now? Her confession over Hermione's petrified form the year before rose to the forefront of her mind and she felt a heavy sadness settle over her as it seemed the dream she had for her future grew further and further away. Her bond mates were pulling away from her. Her father was selling her contract to Malfoy, and it didn't look like Harry was going to bring up a counter offer. Malfoy had delighted in telling her the exact date that her life, as she knew it, would be over.

Her arms came up to wrap around her stomach, hugging herself as an icy knot twisted in her gut. In that moment, Daphne Greengrass had never felt more alone.

#####

"Are you sure I can't help?" Harry asked, his worried gaze locked onto Susan's deep blue eyes.

"Yes, Harry," she told him, gently. "First of all, we would get into a lot of trouble if you were included. Secondly, I think Daphne is more upset with Hermione and I, to be perfectly honest, than she is with you. And third… I'm sorry, but… well, you're still healing. I think this is going to be a far more emotional evening than you're really equipped to handle right now."

Harry was unable to keep the scowl off his face but he had to admit that she was probably right. When she'd found him an hour ago and told him about the trouble Hermione had been having, he'd been furious with himself for missing it. She assured him that she had a plan, though, and with any luck it would go a long way toward helping all of them.

"You and Neville just keep researching with Blaise, okay?" she said, placing a hand on his arms which were crossed over his chest. "Make sure that this plan of yours is going to work. Daphne deserves to make her own choice and that's what we all want for her, right?"

He nodded, some of the tension leaving his frame.

"I've already talked to Hermione a bit, but I'll do it again, and include Daphne on the openness issues that we have. We'll have to set aside some time for all of us to sit down but for right now, let me work on this."

He let out a sigh and finally uncrossed his arms, taking her hand in one of his own as he gave it a gentle squeeze.

"All right. Right after dinner we'll be in the Library so you know where to find us if you need us."

Susan smiled and nodded before letting go of his hand and together, the two of them headed into the Great Hall where dinner was just being served.

Hermione and Neville were both already sitting at the table along with Tracey, Hannah, Blaise, and Luna. Harry felt a small smile creep over his lips at the sight of the diminutive blond. So far, this term had been much better for poor Luna than the previous year had been. Harry was careful to watch for the signs they had ignored before, determined to make up for that mistake and had seen nothing to show that she was having any trouble at all.

When they sat at the table they were met with a round of greetings from their friends while Susan stashed her book bag underneath the bench to keep it out of the way. Five minutes later, Daphne slid into the empty spot to Susan's left, half way through Neville regaling them with the story of the new pet that was now living with Hagrid.

"Hagrid even named him already," Neville explained. "Decided to call him Snuffles."

Hannah, Tracey, and Blaise have Neville an odd look while Harry and the girls all snorted a small laugh in near perfect unison.

"I think I'll avoid meeting Snuffles for as long as I can, then," Hermione muttered.

"Why's that?"

"Fluffy and Norbert," Harry said raising two fingers on one hand. "Both very dangerous creatures with innocuous or even silly seeming names." He lifted one finger on his other hand. "Fang. A completely harmless coward of a dog with a scary or dangerous sounding name."

"Admittedly, that's not much of a sample size to go on,"Daphne pointed out.

"But Hagrid does seem to have a pattern when it comes to naming his pets. A dog he decides to name Snuffles is, in all likelihood, a dangerous animal to be around," Susan added, finishing off their explanation as their friends heads turned first from one of them to another as they went through their thoughts.

There were several seconds of silence as Hannah, Tracey, Blaise, and even Neville just stared at them before Blaise started to laugh, quietly under his breath.

"You know," he said, the four of you might not be as bad as the red-headed-devil-twins, but it's still freaky how inside each other's heads you all are."

The four of them exchanged a look and then shrugged, again nearly in unison, which had their friends laughing quietly in response to their actions.

"Maybe," Neville admitted in response to their concern over Snuffles after they all managed to get their amusement under control. "Snuffles is scary looking, and I'm sure he could be dangerous if needed, but he's just a big softy inside. He really reminded me a lot of Hagrid, honestly."

The bonded quartet shrugged again, which once more set their friends off, before conversation moved on for the remainder of the meal.

Just as they were finishing up and getting ready to leave the table a voice rang out from behind the four of them, causing all eyes to turn to the newcomer.

"Lord Potter, ladies," Professor McGonagall greeted them. The entire group chorused a greeting before the professor turned her attention back to the girls. "If I could speak with the three of you, please?"

Hermione and Daphne both took on a confused expression while Susan simply nodded her head.

"If you'll follow me then, ladies," she said before striding off, leaving the three girls to follow in her wake with Susan stopping only long enough to snatch her bag from beneath the bench and sling it over one shoulder as she hurried after them.

Harry's eyes followed them until they were out of sight and he turned back to the rest of his friends, an unreadable expression on his face.

"What was that about?" Neville asked, looking curiously at his best friend.

"Susan decided they needed to have a talk," Harry muttered roughly as he hedged around the question.

"Daphne has a particularly bad infestation of Wrackspurts at the moment, and Hermione needs help, too," Luna cut in, her breezy voice a soft counterpoint to Harry's harsher, more frustrated tone.

It was a testament to the character of each person in their group that none of them even batted an eye any longer when Luna came out with one of her usual bouts of oddity. Instead, Harry simply wrapped one arm around the slender girls shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"That's our Luna," he said. "Putting things in perspective for us."

The rest of them shared a quiet chuckle as Luna's pale features bloomed with a brilliant blush and Harry gave her shoulders a squeeze before he turned to Neville and Blaise.

"Come on, guys," he said. "Back to the Library, we've got work to do and I want to see how much we can work out before curfew."

The girls waved good bye to them as the three boys split off, heading for the Hogwarts Library while Hannah, Tracey, and Luna wandered in another direction, the older girls gently teasing the still blushing little blond. For Luna, a warm feeling burned in her chest as she reveled in the gentle, friendly teasing that was so different from the mean spirited words she'd suffered before from the member of her own House.

It really is wonderful, having friends, she thought.

#####

Susan kept her eyes firmly on the back of Professor McGonagall's robes as the elderly witch led them through the castle. She could feel Hermione and Daphne giving her questioning looks as they walked, but she did her level best to ignore them, for now. The whole situation would be made clear to them soon enough.

She really hoped her idea would work, that it would help them.

Either minutes into their walk, Hermione's slight gasp told her that the other witch had figured out their destination. Two minutes after that had them coming to a stop in the seventh floor corridor across from a tapestry of a rather confused wizard that was attempting to teach trolls to dance ballet.

"Miss Bones?"

Susan nodded and stepped past the professor to open the door as their Head of House turned to address the other two girls.

"Earlier today, Miss Bones came to see me about a problem. She also suggested a possible solution to this problem. Normally I would never dream of allowing any students to spend an evening away from the dormitories that did not include a family emergency or a stay in the Hospital Wing, however, Miss Bones was most… persuasive in her argument."

Behind the professor a familiar looking door appeared in the wall, but Daphne and Hermione were too busy gaping in astonishment at their Head of House to notice or place where they'd seen it before.

"That being said," she continued, a stern glare in place as she eyed each girl in turn, "while I trust the three of you, more than I would trust most students, I will be keeping an eye out throughout the night. I do not expect that I will discover the presence of a certain wizard, who we all know happens to be in possession of an invisibility cloak entering this room at any time this evening, will I?"

"Professor!" Hermione blurted out, her face burning scarlet while the other girls cheeks warmed to match their bond mate.

"As difficult as it may be to believe, ladies, I was young, once," McGonagall said, a small grin twitching at the corners of her lips as the girls sputtered incoherently for a few moments before getting ahold of themselves.

"What is going on?" Hermione finally asked, looking past their professor to Susan, who was still standing by the door she'd requested.

"We need to sit down and talk, and we need to do it sooner than later," Susan insisted, fidgeting nervously under the combined stares of her two friends. "Daphne's been upset with us all month, not that she's wrong to feel that way. Hermione we need to try to figure out what's going on with you and we all need to be more open, like we keep telling Harry. If we can't be open with each other, and him, how can we keep expecting him to open up to us? He's right to be upset with us still over what we kept from him, as valid as our reasons might have been at the start."

Daphne and Hermione glanced at each other, each silently attempting to gauge the other's reaction to Susan's idea. Finally, both girls let out a resigned sigh and nodded their heads.

"We'll need to head to our dorm first and get some clothes," Hermione pointed out. "I don't know about you two, but I don't intend to sleep in my school uniform."

"I've already got that covered," Susan said, lifting up the bag she had slung over her right shoulder. I grabbed us each something to change into and I talked to the elves in the kitchen as well, there was this one really excitable one that said he'd be happy to bring us drinks and snacks if need be.

"Why go to all this trouble?" Daphne enquired, speaking for the first time. "We could just as easily talk in the dorms."

"There are other people in the dorms and I'm not entirely certain this will be a calm discussion at all times. I figured, just in case there's any argument or disagreement, it might be better that we didn't have to worry about accidentally having an audience."

"With that in mind," the professor cut in, "I'll be holding onto your wands this evening," she finished, holding out one hand expectantly.

"You can't honestly think we'd attack each other!" Susan burst out. "I admit, I'm pretty sure there'll be some raised voices at one point or another, but we're friends and we care about each other."

"No, I do not think you will, however I would be remiss not to take precautions. And that is my final demand in order to allow this evening to happen. If you choose not to relinquish your wands at this time you can simply return to your dormitories and forget this entire idea."

Susan looked pleadingly to the other girls. She didn't like the idea of being separated from her wand much, either, but she really believed they needed to sit down and talk and some privacy was paramount. It didn't take too long, maybe a minute or two, but eventually, Hermione removed her wand from within her robes and gingerly held it out, handle first, toward her favorite professor. Susan quickly followed and then Daphne, with only slightly more reluctance.

"Thank you, ladies," the aged witch said as she carefully tucked the wands into her robes. "As I said, I will be checking on you periodically throughout the night. Obviously it would not be a good idea for you to be wandering the corridors without your wands, or after curfew so I will return at eight o'clock tomorrow morning to return your wands to you."

"Thank you, very much, Professor," Susan told her, meaning more than simply returning their wands to them tomorrow morning and the small smile she received in response spoke volumes.

Professor McGonagall placed one hand on Susan's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze muttering a quiet, "good luck," before she turned and strode briskly away, leaving the three girls standing outside the simple wooden door.

"Well, come on then," Susan chirped, attempting to sound cheerful and excited. "Let's get this show on the road."

Behind her, Hermione and Daphne both muttered something under their breaths but she paid them no mind as she grasped the brass door knob and gave it a quick turn before she pushed the door open and stepped into a nearly identical recreation of Susan's bedroom back at the Boneyard. She glanced around for a moment as the other girls filed in behind her and Daphne closed the door, which vanished moments later. The carpet beneath their feet, the furniture and decorations and the paint on the walls were all exactly as they were back home. The only difference was an increased number of doors in the walls.

To the right from where they entered was the simple door that Susan knew led to her private bath at home, and she had no reason to believe that this recreation didn't lead to exactly the same thing here. On the opposite side of her bed against the right wall was another door, which lead to her closet back home, but the two other doors were new additions and she had a guess as to where they lead. Striding around the bed she pulled open the 'closet' door to find a completely different room.

"All right," she said, spinning around and taking charge as Daphne and Hermione approached, looking more than a bit nervous. With Daphne it was difficult to tell, but they knew the beautiful blond well enough to spot the tiny signs that she wasn't entirely comfortable with her current situation. Susan slung her bag onto the recreation of her bed and reached in, pulling out two small knapsacks that she'd prepared earlier and handed one to each girl.

"We've got three changing rooms here," she explained as she pointed to each of the other doors. "Pick one, shower and change and… well… we'll just try to relax and talk, sound good?" Internally she winced. She'd started out strong, but by the time she reached the end she realized that her plan really wasn't much of a plan and she lost a lot of confidence in herself, and what she was saying.

Silently, Daphne strode for the door furthest away and quickly slipped inside while Hermione eyed Susan carefully for a few moments before she walked up and pulled the redhead into a hug.

"We'll get through it," she whispered in the other girls ear and gave her one final quick squeeze before she let go and took the door in the middle, closing it gently behind her.

Susan directed her eyes toward the ceiling for a moment before she pleaded quietly, "please, let this work," before she pulled her own clothes out and slipped into the last changing room.

Susan stripped out of her robes and uniform as if they were on fire and took, probably, the fastest shower of her life. The end result of her haste was that she was the first of the three of them to return to the bedroom dressed in the clothes she'd packed, despite being the last of the three to start getting ready.

She shivered slightly as her damp hair brushed across her shoulders and back and, with nothing else to do while she waited, she picked up a comb off of the bedside table, sat cross legged in the middle of the bed, and started to comb out her nearly waist length hair.

She had just finished tying her hair back into a simple braid when the other two doors opened, nearly simultaneously, and Daphne and Hermione cautiously came back into the room.

"Susan?" Hermione asked, tying a thin bathrobe shit as she walked into the room. "Where did these clothes come… from…"

When the doors opened, Susan threw her braid over her shoulder and stood facing the other girls, her hands fidgeting nervously against her thighs. Hermione looked up from the belt to her robe and her eyes widened, voice trailing off as both of them just stared at Susan for several long minutes.

Always before, the three girls slept in pajama pants and long sleeved tops, something they'd each, individually, been doing since they were very young. The habit of hiding the scars that covered their bodies was as much an ingrained thing as it was for Harry and even after nearly two years sharing a bed, they'd still rarely actually seen each other in much of any state of undress. The outfits that Susan had packed for this little sleep over were decidedly less covering than any of them were used to.

Susan was wearing a pair of black sleep shorts that barely reached the middle of her thighs and an extremely thin yellow camisole top with spaghetti straps that left a considerable amount of bare skin on display. The top hugged her already generous bust since she'd forgone wearing a bra with the light article and she had never felt more exposed or vulnerable in her life. Not even when they'd shown Harry their scars. At least that time it'd been the three of them to him alone, but now she found herself under the intense scrutiny of two shocked pairs of eyes and had to fight not to squirm under the combined weight of their gazes.

To compound this, she'd dispelled her usual glamours, leaving every scar and blemish that wasn't covered by her minimal clothing on display.

"Susan?" Daphne asked, her voice sounding slightly strained as she shifted her gaze to stare at the floor in front of her.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked and Susan took a deep breath.

"Openness," she told them. "That's been our biggest problem. None of us have been nearly as open with each other as we should be. Possibly Daphne and Harry more so than me or Hermione, but we're all guilty of it. I thought that we needed to talk, and I figured, that maybe if we were all a little… exposed, a little vulnerable… I don't know, it just seemed like a step in the right direction. To stop hiding from each other as much as we hide from the rest of the world. How many times have I told Harry that he doesn't need to hide from us, but that's all that we've been doing? Hiding. Keeping our scars covered. This summer, after we told him about the scars, we still kept hiding them with glamours even when we were in the privacy and safety of the Boneyard or at Hermione's house."

By the time she wound down she couldn't keep her hands still anymore and had clasped them tightly in front of her, fingers twining together as she shifted her weight lightly from one foot to the other.

Daphne and Hermione glanced at each other, each girls cheeks slightly pink, but eventually, Hermione took a deep breath and untied her robe, removing it and tossing it to the side followed by Daphne. They were each dressed in an identical outfit to Susan, except for the color of their top. Daphne's was a brilliant emerald green while Hermione's was a deep blue.

"Trying to tell us something with the colors?" Daphne asked, a smirk tugging at her lips as she made her way across the room to sit in one of the chairs near the fireplace and Susan's face lit up into a broad smile.

"I figured it would be fun to show off our House colors, if we hadn't all been sorted into Gryffindor," she said, joining Daphne in one of the other chairs. "The Hat said that you'd have been good in Slytherin, and it said that I had the loyalty for Hufflepuff and Hermione had the smarts for Ravenclaw." She shrugged. "I actually got a red tank top for Harry too while I was getting these, but I haven't given it to him yet," she admitted and Hermione laughed, a little nervously before she came over and joined them.

"When and why did you get these?"

Susan shrugged. "I actually got them over the summer and planned them as Christmas presents. Luckily I was able to get them sent over this afternoon from the manor so we'd have them tonight."

Hermione and Daphne both hummed a noncommittal sort of noise in the backs of their throats and settled a little more comfortably into their seats.

"So what now?" she asked, sitting carefully on the edge of her hair, her back straight, damp hair falling in a tangled mess around her face and shoulders.

Susan grinned. "Now… Dobby!"

A loud crack echoed through the room and in the space between the large fireplace and the coffee table, a house elf popped into existence causing both Daphne and Hermione to gape at his appearance.

He practically bounced in place where he stood, his little body vibrating with barely restrained energy and he was wrapped in a strange stripped toga like garment. It took about twelve seconds for Hermione to recognize the name from the story she'd been told the year before and then realize that the 'toga' the little elf was wearing, was actually the stripped hospital pajama top that Harry had used to trick Lucius Malfoy into freeing the little elf.

"What can Dobby be doing for the Great Harry Potter Sir's Missy Bonesy?" the little elf squeaked out in his high pitched voice.

Daphne couldn't suppress a snort and Hermione overcame her shock enough to grin at the excitable creature.

"Could you please dispel the glamours that Hermione and Daphne have on them?" she asked before glancing at the girls. "If that's okay?"

They nodded and Dobby literally bounced in place several times, his ears flapping up and down with the movement of his body.

"Dobby can be doing this," he squeaked out and snapped his long fingers. A moment later the glamours shattered, filling the air briefly with a sound like glass breaking before they fell away, revealing the scars that had been hidden beneath them.

"Thank you, very much, Dobby," Susan told him. "Are you enjoying working here in the castle?"

Dobby nodded so vigorously he nearly slapped himself in the face with his own ears.

"Very much Missy Bonesy. Dobby is getting one day off and two Galleons a month for pay. Headmaster Whiskers is almost as great a wizard as the Great Harry Potter Sir, for paying such a lowly free elf."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy, Dobby. You might stop in and say hello to Harry sometime, I'm sure he'd be happy to learn that you're doing well. Before you go, could you set out the food and drinks we talked about earlier?"

"Yes, Missy Bonesy, Dobby can," Dobby snapped his fingers again and a moment later disappeared with another ear splitting crack as tubs of ice cream, bowls of chocolate frogs, licorice wands, platters of pumpkin pasties, pumpkin pie, and several self heating pitchers filled with hot chocolate appeared on the coffee table in front of them.

Susan's eyes grew wide at the sight of it all before she turned her attention to her equally startled bond mates.

"I did not ask him for that much," she blurted out causing both to break out into a fit of giggles.

"He's certainly… enthusiastic," Daphne commented as she poured herself a mug of hot chocolate.

"How did you even know he was here?" Hermione asked, already reaching for one of the pumpkin pasties.

Susan shrugged. "I didn't, honestly. I went down to the kitchens earlier, just to ask for some help for tonight, and there he was. Little guy almost knocked me over when he ran up and hugged my legs."

Laughter filled the room after that and it seemed to be just what the needed to relax the tension in the air. Conversation started, haltingly, at first, but it grew as they started with relatively safe topics, even going over discussions they'd already had in the past.

Eventually, after more than an hour of hot chocolate and more junk food than was good for them, Hermione found herself sitting on the floor between Susan's feet. Susan had a towel draped over her lap and had pulled the still damp mass of Hermione's hair into her lap as she gently worked a brush through the tangle curls. Daphne was curled up in her chair, a blanket thrown over her own lap and another mug of hot chocolate clutched in her hands as Hermione sat, her eyes closed as she drifted under Susan's attention.

"I love your hair," Susan commented, suddenly, and Hermione made a disgusted face that Susan could see but had Daphne chuckling quietly.

"I hate it. It's always so out of control, I just can't do anything with it. I never really bothered much, either, I was always so focused on school and my books…" she trailed off and shrugged, somewhat self deprecatingly.

"Well… yeah I can see how you'd reach that conclusion," Susan admitted as she ran the brush through the other girls hair. "With how naturally curly it is it get's tangled so easily. It would definitely be a lot of work, but we could do some great things with your hair, if you want. It's such a rich color, and you've got these gold highlights in it that are just beautiful."

"You really think you can do something with all this mess?"

"It's only a mess because you're too practical to spend the time on it that it needs. Trust me, you let me take care of it each day and you'll be amazed what we can do with hair like this."

"Well… if you're sure, I'd like that." Hermione tilted her head back for a moment, looking up at the girl behind her with a small smile turning her lips. "Thank you, Susan."

"This was a good idea," Daphne spoke up a moment later while Susan had begun twisting Hermione's long hair into a braid similar to her own. "But are we actually going anywhere with this other than a simple hang out session?" she asked.

Susan took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh while her hands continued their work.

"There's a few points I think we need to work out. First, Hermione's nightmares and these headaches she's been getting, I think they're related and that all ties back to you, Daphne."

"I don't see how you come to that conclusion."

"I told you back at my house," Hermione interjected. "The nightmares… I swear I'm trying to remember something, but I can never quite get it. I just feel like something happened when I was petrified that I should remember, that I need to remember, but I can't."

Daphne looked toward the fire, her fingers tightening around her cup.

"I don't know what to tell you, Hermione. I can't imagine what it is that you could be remembering when you were in an enchanted sleep, of a sort. None of the other victims remember anything from their time being petrified, so I don't see why you would."

"But none of the other victims have a Soul Bond," Susan pointed out. "Isn't it possible that we were able to reach her, even a little, because of the bond?"

Silence greeted that question and Susan finished off the braid, tying off the end with a hair tie.

"You told us that you spilled your guts to Hermione while she was petrified. You told her about that past of yours that you're still keeping from us," Susan said, trying to keep her voice calm and gentle. "Why can't you tell us about it now?"

"Why can't Harry tell us about his life at his relatives?" Daphne shot back. "Why can't the three of you, and Neville, tell me what it is you're hiding from me?"

Hermione and Susan both jerked at the anger in the blonds tone.

"That's different," Hermione tried.

"So you'll finally admit that you are hiding something. Every other time I've asked why you both get up before me and I see you four talking with your heads together you've told me it was nothing. So this whole last month you've been actively lying to me. At least when we didn't tell Harry about the scars and when Harry and I don't tell you about our past we're not lying. Everyone knows there's something unspoken and has accepted that we're not ready yet."

"Okay, I'm sorry we told you it was nothing. But we still can't tell you what we've been working on." Hermione pulled away from Susan and rose to her feet. "We're trying to help you, but we can't tell you about it, not right now."

"Why not?" Daphne demanded, also shooting to her feet, her mug landing on the table with a loud clunk as spikes of anger shot across the bond from both girls. Mixed in with Daphne's anger was fear, disgust, and despair, and Susan couldn't understand why. "My life is likely going to be destroyed in the next couple of months and the only good thing I have to hold onto has been pulling away from me. You want us all to be open and share with each other so why can't you share this with me? It is about me, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is but…" Susan trailed off, looking desperately to Hermione but the other girl was more than angry enough not to notice the pleading look.

"I'm sorry you feel like we've been pulling away from you but we've been trying to help you!" Hermione snapped, glaring at the blond.

"And I could help, too! I know the wizarding world better than you or Harry do."

"We've got Susan, Neville, and Blaise to help us."

"You don't trust me."

"You've been lying to me!"

Daphne jerked back as if she'd been slapped and the two of them fell silent for a moment, both girls red in the face and breathing heavily.

"What was that?"

"You've been lying for months, Daphne. I know these nightmares have something to do with you. I wouldn't wake up screaming for you for no reason. I have never, not once, called for Susan or for Harry with these things, it's always you, and I'm positive you know why. I'm damn stubborn, you all know that, and I've been trying to figure it out for myself but I can't remember."

"And why is that my fault?" Daphne demanded. There's no way she heard me. It's not possible.

"Because you said you told me about your past, and from your reluctance to talk about it to anyone that is actually awake and can hear you, it can't be good. Every time I call out for you, I'm scared, and so sad, and it's for you. I'm sad for you, I'm scared for you, and I'm fucking angry for you!"

"No one asked you to be angry for me!" she shot back. If I tell you you'll be angry at me.

"Too bad! What'd I tell you last year? You belong to us and we belong to you. And we were supposed to work on all this long before now but things got away from us. I'm sorry for that. But we're here, Daphne. We're here for you and we want to help."

"Don't say that!" Daphne shouted.

Panic was truly beginning to set in. If I tell them, they'll hate me. They'll be disgusted. It's better never to know, I don't want to see that look in their eyes.

Forgotten by the two arguing girls, Susan sat frozen in her chair, wondering just when the entire situation devolved into a shouting match, even though she'd suspected it might. Each word spoken in anger felt like a needle stabbing into her chest as clashing, violent emotions rolled across the bond. Somewhere in the distance, she could just barely feel Harry trying to push soothing feelings toward them but the two girls anger and Daphne's growing fear nearly drowned him out.

Hermione stepped around the table toward Daphne who had her arms wrapped around herself, her head down as if afraid to look at the other girls.

"What are you afraid of, Daphne," Hermione asked, her voice suddenly soft and soothing instead of shouting in anger. "Whatever happened to you wasn't your fault. I can't imagine that you honestly think we'd see you differently, or feel differently about you over something you can't control."

Daphne violently shook her head, her hair flying wildly about with each sharp motion.

"It doesn't matter," she muttered.

"Of course it matters, Daphne. You're important to-"

"It doesn't matter!" she snapped, cutting Susan off. "It doesn't matter, because before we get back from Christmas break, I won't be able to see you or Harry or any of our friends anymore."

If they won't have to deal with you anymore, then why not? The desperate, traitorous thought entered her mind and Daphne shook her head again, attempting to physically dispel the idea that had sprung up.

Hermione nearly stumbled she was so surprised and took another step toward Daphne.

"What are you saying?"

"Malfoy told me today. Father is going to sign the contract with Lucius Malfoy on Christmas Eve, and with what Draco said… if he wasn't lying, basically I'll be no more than a slave or a sex toy for him to use. I won't even be able to disobey him, the magic of the contract will ensure I follow every order he gives me." The horror and disgust in her voice was very nearly a palpable thing, like another presence in the room with them.

"That's not going to happen," Hermione insisted, heatedly. "I promise, we're going to figure a way out for you."

"You can't know that. I know the laws. I know how it works and I can't see any way out for me. I didn't even get to…" Last time was terrible. She's awake now, not frozen.

"Don't worry about that. Whatever it is, you'll get to do it." Hermione reached out and gently tilted Daphne's head up, forcing the other girls tear filled, icy blue gaze to meet hers. "I promise. Harry promised. Susan and Neville promised. We're going to find a way."

Daphne licked her lips, just the tip of her tongue darting out for the briefest moment.

"I don't know that," she whispered. "And once that contract's signed… I'll never be able to… I'll never…" Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her entire body rigid as Hermione stepped closer, officially invading the other girls personal space. Daphne could feel the warmth from her body, her breath brushing across her face, smelling faintly of chocolate and pumpkin.

You will never get another chance.

"Please," Daphne practically whimpered. "Please, don't hate me."

"We could never hate you, that won't happen. Can you please tell us whatever it is you mmph-"

Hermione's eyes shot wide open and whatever she'd been about to say cut off with a muffled sound as Daphne's hands came up, cupping either side of her face, and before she knew it her bond mates lips were covering hers in a desperate, passionate, kiss.

#####

Late in the evening a warm, clean, and happily full dog stretched out before the fire in Hagrid's hut. With his front paws crossed and his chin resting on top of them, he stared into the fire. His fur was clean and with his belly full for the first time in longer than he could remember, the urge to sleep was nearly overpowering.

It was amazing, how the simple things made life worth living.

Hagrid had been thrilled to meet him, and the newly christened Snuffles had been just as happy, bouncing and barking excitedly. Honestly, the half giant was a little too thorough in his cleaning, so thought the dog, but there wasn't much he could really do about that. When Hagrid let him into the cabin after his overly thorough bath and a good rub down with a towel to remove the majority of the water, he'd happened a glance at a calendar on his way toward laying down in front of the fire to dry off the rest of the way.

October 2nd, 1993.

Halloween, he decided.

He knew, well enough, during most days it was nearly impossible to get the Gryffindor common room completely empty. But on Halloween, every single student in the school would be in the Great Hall for the holiday feast. The tower would be empty.

And besides, he decided as he closed his eyes to go to sleep, wasn't it just fitting that the traitorous rat would die on the anniversary of that night?

Snuffles the dog, or better known as Sirius Black in his animagus form, fell asleep that night, dreaming of revenge. It was easily the best nights sleep he'd had in twelve years.