Effie Vance and the Notorious Mass Murderer, Sirius Black

A Potter and a Black roam the halls of Hogwarts again. Somebody owl Minerva McGonagall a tin of Ginger Newts. She's going to need them.

Essentially, a merry OC turns our Golden Trio into a less angsty quartet.

Author's Notes: And here, I continue my descent into Black family madness with another new story, and another OC.

Mostly because I just really love the idea of Sirius having a daughter and naming her after Euphemia Potter. And then that child growing up as a Sirius who had loving and perhaps overindulgent parents like James did.


"Hey, Potter!"

Harry startled, almost falling off the low wall he had collapsed on in Magnolia Crescent mere moments earlier.

"Effie!" he said, panicked. "What are you doing here?"

"Collecting your sorry excuse for backside, obviously," cheerily called a grinning twelve-year-old girl. She was holding up a stick, the very tip of it radiating light, illuminating the cool blue shades of her long, dark hair; but this stick wasn't a mere piece of wood, nor was it powered by batteries.

Effie Vance was a witch and the light was coming from her magic wand.

"But –?" Harry cut himself off. He didn't know what to say.

In his panic, he had forgotten his anger at his awful relatives, but now, in its place, was rising dread. He had severely broken the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry. Although the first infraction hadn't been his fault – but rather due to the misguided actions of a well-intentioned house-elf – in the eyes of wizarding law, this would be Harry's second offence.

Effie dropped to sit next to Harry, carelessly balancing so far on the back edge of the wall that she looked at risk of toppling over. He shivered when she clapped a comforting hand on his shoulder. Effie's mother, Emmeline Vance, was a member of the Wizengamot, wizarding Britain's high court, and though he wasn't sure exactly how things worked at the Ministry of Magic, he couldn't be certain that Ms Vance was not here to arrest him.

"You all right, Haz?" Effie asked kindly. She had lowered her wand and dimmed the Wand-Lighting Charm so that it wasn't quite so blinding. "Mama said you inflated a Muggle and that you're lucky she was having dinner with Fudge's cabinet when they found out, otherwise you'd be in some serious trouble right about now."

Harry's stomach flooded with icy water. The inflated Muggle was his unpleasant Uncle Vernon's equally unpleasant sister, Marge Dursley, non-magical and unaware that Harry was a wizard. There were laws in place to prevent Muggles from learning about magic, which he had broken when he unintentionally blew her up.

"Do you know how much trouble I'm in, Fi?" asked Harry nervously. Should he make a run for it? Disappear before Ms Vance showed up? Surely Effie wouldn't assist with his arrest! She was his best friend.

Harry should have anticipated it, but he didn't appreciate Effie's bark of laughter when her deep blue eyes caught him clutching his own wand tighter. He threw her a scowl.

"They don't snap your wand for accidental magic, you know," she said mildly.

"But you remember what happened last year!" hissed Harry urgently. "With Dobby." The house-elf had truly meant well, had only wanted to save Harry's life, but his help had been more trouble than it was worth.

"Ah, yes, well … they don't when you're Harry Potter, I suppose."

Harry's face burned, but he couldn't help feeling just that tiniest bit relieved – grateful, even – for the preferential treatment that his fame in the wizarding world afforded him this one time. Usually, all it did was remind him why he was an orphan and put him in uncomfortable situations. People only knew his name because his parents had died to save his life at the wand of an evil Dark wizard.

Harry's life seemed to consist of a ceaseless parade of people trying to save his life, and all parties suffering in some way because of it.

"But don't you go feeling guilty about special treatment," Effie smiled wryly. "You should hear what some wizarding families let their kids get away with over the holidays." She waggled her eyebrows.

Harry had a strong inkling about what she was alluding to.

The Trace was a charm that monitored the magical activity around underage witches and wizards, but not who casted the magic. On the train home for the summer holidays after their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Effie had explained that, according to Ms Vance, the Trace was a seemingly innocuous tracking system used to target Muggle-born children, who didn't live in magical households with magical families.

Harry wasn't Muggle-born, though his mother had been; and his father was considered a pure-bloodd, from a whole family of wizards. Harry was a half-blood who lived with his Muggle relatives, with no witches or wizards of age around him to account for any magic that went on in Privet Drive. The Trace remained in effect until adulthood, which was seventeen years old in the wizarding world. Harry still had four years to go. He should have been in a lot of trouble.

"We should probably get back," muttered Effie, restlessly running her free hand through her hair. "Mama's not going to be pleased that I wandered off on my own to find you."

"Right," said Harry. "Sorry about that."

"Nox." Effie had put out the light from the tip of her wand. Like Harry, she too was a half-blood, but grew up with her mother and godfather, a witch and a wizard. She probably never had to worry about underage magic, come to think about it.

Harry had made to heave his trunk but paused abruptly.

"I don't have to return to Privet Drive, do I?" he said desperately. "My aunt and uncle, they – after Aunt Marge, I think I'd rather take my chances on the streets."

It sounded like a feasible plan, now that he knew he wasn't in danger of being arrested for underage magic. He had his broomstick. He could figure out his trunk and owl cage with Ms Vance, maybe ask her to cast a Feather-Light Charm, tie them to his broomstick and fly off elsewhere – anywhere that wasn't Surrey – under his Invisibility Cloak.

Effie looked at Harry like he was an idiot. "Hadn't I already said that we were here to collect your sorry arse?" She impatiently picked up his cage, gestured for Harry to take his trunk and briskly loped down the dark, quiet street.

"I believe it was my 'sorry excuse for a backside,' Vance!" Harry called after Effie, fumbling with his trunk and scrambling to keep up with her long legs.

Effie swivelled on one heel and then started walking backwards to blast him with the full brunt of her play-acted annoyance. "It's not like we haven't rescued you from this criminally mundane circle of hellish boredom and misery every year since we were seven!"

Perhaps Harry was still a little panicky. He had forgotten that he spent as much of every summer as he could at Effie's house from the moment they became friends at the Scorpion School.

Scorpion was a posh Muggle pre and prep school in London that Harry's late parents had apparently left funds for him to attend. He had boarded there from ages seven through ten, though Effie had never lived away from home until they started Hogwarts. Living in the same city, she only went there during the day, and brought Harry back to her house often – after the trial of securing permission from his contrarily oppugnant guardians, Petunia and Vernon Dursley.

Harry's Aunt Petunia was wearing the peculiar, strained smile she only wore around Ms Vance when he and Effie warily stepped through the front door of number four, Privet Drive.

Harry and Effie exchanged sniggers at the sight.

Although Ms Vance was a highly accomplished witch – and therefore the embodiment of everything that Aunt Petunia despised in another woman – to the Muggle world, she was known as Countess Vance, the business magnate, sole surviving issue of the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland and Teviotdale, and heir apparent to their Muggle dukedom. Whenever Ms Vance visited the Dursleys to pick up Harry or drop him off, Aunt Petunia seemed unable to decide whether she wanted to refuse her entrance to the house or offer her afternoon tea with their best china.

"As long as you keep him – I mean, you take – take care of him until next summer," said Aunt Petunia haltingly, her bony hands wringing themselves pink.

Aunt Petunia was shocked to discover that her sister and her sister's "layabout" husband – Harry's mother and father, Lily and James Potter – had the foresight and the means to make an Old Scorpion out of their son. She was speechless upon finding out that Harry had met a member of the British aristocracy who she keenly followed in the Muggle tabloids, and then that he dared to closely acquaint himself with the only child of the Countess, Lady Euphemia; close enough to call the Vance House in Belgravia a second – in Harry's mind, his first real – home.

"We're always happy to take Harry in," said Ms Vance staidly. A short woman, she barely had to bend down to give Harry her customary tight hug when she saw him. "We're so glad you're safe," she said lowly, for his ears only. "Please don't run away like that again. Especially not right now. Merlin, Morgana and Arthur!"

"I promise, Ms Vance," said Harry quietly, melting into her motherly embrace. He didn't remember being hugged by his own mother. Lily Potter had died protecting him in his nursery when he was a baby.

The soothing, rose-scented spell that Harry had fallen into was broken when he saw Effie making gagging motions, and he hastily pulled himself out of Ms Vance's tiny arms. Aunt Petunia hadn't noticed Effie pretending to vomit violently on her clean carpet, her horse-like face instead tightening at the open affection displayed between Harry and Ms Vance.

Ms Vance was the closest thing that Harry had to a mother in living memory.

"I assume you packed all your things into your trunk before you irresponsibly ran away earlier this evening?" said Ms Vance steadily.

"I did …" said Harry awkwardly, rocking back and forth on his feet, already anticipating his freedom from the Dursleys. He had been there for the entire month of July, his longest period trapped with them in their house for years, before he attended Scorpion and met Effie. It had been dreadful.

Ms Vance laughed lightly. "There's a good chap." She wrapped a warm arm around his slight shoulders and led him out the front door. "But no more running away, all right?"

"All right," he promised.

Effie was hot on their heels, carrying Harry's trunk and cage.

He felt a flush of embarrassment worse than when he was caught indulging in Ms Vance's hug, and took his heavy trunk from Effie. "You don't have to do that."

"It was no trouble at all," said Effie, impudently grinning and letting go of his trunk. "None, whatsoever."

She had cast a Feather-Light Charm on it.


The Vance House at number seven, Wilton Crescent, was an astonishingly magical home located in a thoroughly Muggle area of London. Judging from its imposing but perfectly mundane stone-clad exterior, Harry never would have guessed that it was hiding so many odd and amazing surprises if he hadn't been inside of there before.

Effie's blasé explanation of the towering bookcases that lined the high-ceilinged hallways – which shifted across the walls and rearranged their contents according to the needs of passers-by – to one of her and Harry's best friends from Hogwarts, Hermione Granger, the last summer had concluded with Hermione declaring that this was her favourite house in all of Great Britain.

Harry was inclined to think along the same lines.

Ms Vance didn't need to worry about Muggles catching Harry or Effie flying on their broomsticks in the backyard, because there were undetectable gardens hidden beneath the basement, large enough to accommodate wild games of Quidditch over the top of them. It was high above the Vances' underground gardens, underneath their heavily fortified basement, where Harry had first experienced the fierce joy of riding a broomstick; and there was no better sport in the world than Quidditch, flying in the air, and throwing or hitting or catching balls, depending on what position one played.

Effie loved Quidditch too, but was equally as partial to football. She and Harry had been banned from the private gardens that the Vances shared with their neighbours for illicit dribbling three summers ago, which was a shame, because there were cyclically suspicious occasions when they were restricted above ground level of the house, not allowed to enter the basement or pass through it.

These holidays, one such occasion had coincided with a bout of "unseasonal flu" that Effie's routinely exhausted godfather caught once a month, every month, on the full moon. The man went by the name Remus Lupin to all, and Uncle Moony to Effie – and so, of course, it was only logical that he not be just a fully-qualified wizard and mild-mannered preparatory school librarian, but also a werewolf.

Harry's suspicions were confirmed when he was nine, and he didn't understand why the Vance household still made such a production of trying to hide it – quite poorly, mind. Werewolves were supposedly dangerous Dark creatures, but as far he knew, they wore woollen jumpers underneath old tweed blazers with suede elbow patches, drank Assam tea with an unconscionable amount of sugar in it and were uncommonly generous with sharing their sweets.

Mr Lupin – now, Professor Lupin – was going to be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. Harry was truly happy for him. He had been a kind, insightful and unusually tolerant librarian when Harry and Effie went to Scorpion. But then, he did have a hand in raising Effie Vance.

It wasn't all good news, however. There was a pervading rumour that Professor Lupin's new job was jinxed. Nobody had lasted in it for more than a year for decades; since before Ms Vance and Professor Lupin had attended Hogwarts themselves.

"Tag, you're it," said an impeccably dressed Ms Vance at eight in the morning. She was leaning over Professor Lupin's shoulder, nosily reading the letter that he held in his hands at the huge, round oak table in the airy dining room. The letter contained detailed correspondence concerning his new teaching position.

Ms Vance had taught Defence Against the Dark Arts several years ago, when Ron's eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, attended Hogwarts. Ron Weasley was Harry and Effie's other best friend, though he had been Harry's first, like Hermione had first been Effie's.

"Don't have too much fun, now, Professor," Ms Vance chirped directly into Professor Lupin's ear.

Professor Lupin grumpily murmured something unintelligible into his teacup.

Increasing sunlight seemed to be streaming in from all sides of the room, even though the floor-to-ceiling windows only lined one wall, and the Vances appeared to have brightened with it. Unlike Professor Lupin, Effie and Ms Vance were of that rare and incomprehensible species: morning people.

Every morning, Effie unceremoniously woke Harry up – early – by way of jumping on his bed, as his personal, unsolicited alarm clock. She would then drag him out for a run in the underground gardens, past neatly organised clusters of magical plants and around the edge of a gigantic pond. It was just Harry and Effie when she did the same to him at Hogwarts, but sometimes Ms Vance would join them when they were at home. Professor Lupin decidedly did not.

"Well, I'm off," said Ms Vance, straightening up and smoothing non-existent wrinkles from her lovely verdant robes. "Children, do try to complete your holiday work. You'll be returning to Hogwarts soon enough." She shot a stern look at Effie, who loudly sighed.

"But we already know all that rubbish," she whined emphatically, waving her crumpet in the air.

"We do," agreed Harry, nodding in solidarity. He had never considered himself book smart, but between Effie's cleverness and, later, Hermione's intellect and determination, he was surprised to find himself a talented student with excellent marks – first Muggle, and then magical. The girls' catalysing combination of diametrically differing forces had even managed to push a terribly lazy Ron into scrounging up the occasional Outstanding essay.

Professor Lupin looked up from his tea, fond amusement dancing across his faintly scarred face. "Now, Effie, just because you know a lot, doesn't mean you don't have anything left to learn." He glanced at Harry next. "You keep that in mind too, Mr Potter."

Harry ducked his head and suddenly found the poached eggs on his plate incredibly interesting. Professor Lupin had a way of making him feel more guilty from his light, humorous disappointment than any of his teachers at Scorpion or Hogwarts had ever managed with admonishments or outright scolding.

"Merlin knows the smartest ones are also the stupidest," said Ms Vance wryly. She smiled in apology at Professor Lupin. "Present company excluded."

"Thank you ever so much, Mama," beamed Effie, and she then took a disgustingly loud bite of her crumpet.

"Behave." Ms Vance looked sharply between Effie and Harry. "Finish your homework." Her deep-set cerulean eyes bore into her daughter's almost identical ones. "The Muggle stuff I set you, too."

"But –"

"No buts, Euphemia Hope Honorius."

Effie clenched her jaw. That was never a good sign for anybody within hexing range. Harry poked her cheek to get a laugh out of her, and was pleased to see that she had to clamp down harder to suppress it. She wasn't too far gone.

But she was still determined to remain cross with her mother for the audacity of piling her with yet more homework.

Effie was expected to straddle two worlds her whole life, being a witch from a respected wizarding family as well as such a prominent Muggle one. During the school holidays, Ms Vance gave her a lot of the work that she would have done, had she stayed at Scorpion and been fed into Stowe or Cheltenham. Ms Vance liked to say that they were well prepared for any Squibs popping up in the family.

Squibs were non-magical people born to magical families, the opposite of a Muggle-born, and were benevolently ostracised from the wizarding community, at best. But members of the Ministry like Ms Vance were trying to change that – not the benevolence, but the ostracism.

It was a slow-going process.

Much like Effie's progress on her Muggle coursework.

Effie took a larger, louder, much less benevolent bite of her crumpet. Harry quietly finished his eggs, eyes bouncing cautiously between mother and daughter. He didn't want to give anyone any ideas, roping him into this in some fashion. He knew more about Shakespeare, the Industrial Revolution and Muggle World Wars than he would ever need to know.

Ms Vance graciously overlooked her daughter's insolence. "Don't leave the house," she said seriously, then pecked Professor Lupin on the lips and strode out of the dining room with great purpose behind the clack of her high-heeled boots.

Effie continued her recalcitrant chewing, and narrowed a pair of challenging eyes at the remaining adult in the room. She wasn't used to her mother being strict – "a bit of a nag, but never strict!" – and had told Harry that she and Professor Lupin had been acting funny all of August.

"I think it has something to do with my father," Effie had said gravely during his first night at her house after he inflated Aunt Marge.

Effie didn't talk much about her father – in part, because she didn't know much about him in the first place. She had been raised unexpectedly insulated from the wizarding world, not unlike Harry, despite her lifelong familiarity with magic. Her knowledge of ancient magical history and international wizarding relations was unmatched, but she didn't know about You-Know-Who or the Boy Who Lived when she cheerfully introduced herself to him at Scorpion; just that her mother had said there would be a new year two student named Harry who she should make feel welcome at their school.

Ms Vance had tried to shield Effie from burdens of the devastating wizarding war that only ended when she and Harry were a year old. The estranged father that she couldn't remember ever meeting had been a major part of it, ruining many lives.

Before catching the name Sirius Black on the Muggle news that his aunt and uncle were watching one morning, all Harry knew about the man was that he was a Dark wizard who had been incarcerated in the legendarily terrifying wizarding gaol, Azkaban, for badly hurting a lot of people.

Harry and Effie had since learned that Sirius Black was a devoted servant of Lord Voldemort, who was the madman that had murdered Harry's parents. He had been imprisoned for killing twelve Muggles, a wizard named Peter Pettigrew and Effie's Uncle Elias with a single curse.

The death of Earl Vance, one of the most eligible bachelors in the world at the time, had made the tragedy widely reported in both the wizarding and the Muggle news. It was a huge story everywhere on the planet, and had made what Harry and Effie thought they were looking for easy to track down. It took them a while to comb through the daunting volume of dated newspapers in the Vance House's extensive media archive, but they weren't deterred.

Neither Ms Vance nor Professor Lupin were forthcoming with information. This bothered Harry, and the injustice of being kept in the dark led the charge for his curiosity, but it especially rankled Effie. She was used to having her every childish whim indulged by her mother and godfather – so long as they weren't harmful or too destructive (a relative concept, raising magical children) – and not at all familiar with being shut down so completely.

The betrayal clouding Effie's face abated the instant a large, proud Malamute haughtily padded into dining room. She had some difficultly sweeping the gigantic dog into her arms, though less so than the last time Harry saw her try. Named after her late uncle, Elias Ernest Augustus had grown up to be big, but so had she. Effie was tall enough that every time she came back home, Ms Vance and Professor Lupin bemoaned missing her childhood.

Professor Lupin accidentally dropped his butter knife while Harry was playing with Eli's energetically wagging tail and Effie had snuggled her face into his thick, black and white fur, but quickly recovered. He gently encouraged them to go upstairs and make some headway their homework after they had finished their breakfast.

Harry couldn't find it in himself to say no to Professor Lupin, nor could he think up an adequate excuse to put it off again. Effie reluctantly directed Eli off her lap before allowing Harry to yank her along with him to collect their books, parchment, quills and ink pots, that had somehow all migrated to his designated bedroom at her house.

The room was spacious, bright and, most importantly, directly across the hall from Effie's slightly larger bedroom; though both were considerably bigger than could be explained by Muggle architects. Full of light like the dining room and wallpapered with intricate scenic tapestries of natural landscapes, it was the fourth place that Harry had slept in, after his nursery in Godric's Hollow, the Dursley's cupboard under the stairs and his old dormitory at Scorpion; and the first that he had ever called his.

Harry had more belongings in his bedroom at the Vances than he kept at the Dursleys' boring square house in all the time he had to live there put together. Neatly sitting where they had last been sent with one of the nifty household charms that he and Effie used the previous Easter holidays – which Effie would be most amenable to making widely known she had personally improved – were his mouthy wizard chess set, his collection of realistic dragon figurines and his half a decade-strong horde of memorabilia for his British league Quidditch team, the Wimbourne Wasps.

Old school books were smothered by the plethora of stationary Muggle comics testing the capacity of his gigantic oak bookcase. Much to Ron's disappointment, Harry hadn't grasped the appeal of the magically animated panels featuring Martin Miggs.

The massive fantasy novels that Effie preferred over Harry's painstakingly pencilled, inked and coloured art with captions appeared to have followed her into his room as he herded her through the door.

Effie sprinted towards Harry's large bed draped in Gryffindor red and threw herself on top of it. She then gingerly rolled onto her back, breathing slowly. She had eaten twice as much as he did.

"Don't make me, Harry," she theatrically wailed. "I can't do it."

Harry flopped onto the bed next to her with none of the elegance she effortlessly displayed, facing the photographs and posters he had stuck to the ceiling some years ago. They portrayed a selection of subjects, all of them – even the Muggle ones, after a potion and some spellwork – noiseless but magically enchanted to life. It had been months since he had seen himself and Effie giving each other piggyback rides in their old Scorpion uniforms, the Hobgoblins play a soundless music set or Melanie Snickert, Captain of the Wasps, jauntily juggle seven bright red balls roughly the size of footballs – Quaffles, the ball that Chasers shot through hoops to earn their Quidditch team points.

"It's not like it's a bag of gambolling japes for anybody else either," he said, but then tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, except Hermione. She tell you that she's rewritten her whole History of Magic essay while her family's been on holiday in France?" he laughed good-naturedly. "Deranged bluestocking."

"I haven't even started mine." Effie rolled over and plopped her face onto his stomach. "I won't do it," she said, her pitiful voice muffled by his yellow and black Wasp t-shirt. "You can't make me."

"But your mum said –"

Effie scoffed dismissively.

Harry tried again. "And Mr Lupin – well, it's Professor Lupin now, isn't it? Professor Lupin asked us to –"

"You're invoking Uncle Moony?" said Effie, suddenly sitting upright, her queasy stomach forgotten. "You, Harry James Potter, boy slayer of ancient Basilisks and infant saviour of the wizarding world, dareth invoke the honourable and most sacred name of Uncle Moony?"

"I dare not risk the disappointed face of sacred Uncle Moony," said Harry levelly.

Effie curled over and groaned into his shirt. "Merlin's bald bollocks, they've got you trained too well."

Harry shoved at her from his lying position. "Sorry I haven't built up an immunity to it like you have," he said without apology.

"Fine," she smiled at him flatly, the cupid's bow of her top lip disappearing. She took out her wand and Summoned their school things to his bed.

They weren't supposed to learn Summoning Charms until their fourth year, but Ron's eagerness at how convenient it would make things for them had piqued their interest early. Hermione had made a hobby of reading – far, far – ahead; and, though they were incredibly rare, there did exist days inside the wondrously magical Hogwarts Castle that were dull enough to warrant taking a crack at her recreational "light reading" habits.

Learning Summoning Charms in second year, however, had been nothing more than procrastination from reading the falsely written works of Gilderoy Lockhart, published fraud extraordinaire and karmically-fated then-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

The next half hour in Harry's room was filled with only the sounds of fresh parchment unfurling, eagle-feather quills scratching and shuffling pages of leather-bound books. Harry rumpled up his messy black hair in frustration as he read through the properties of Shrinking Potions. Effie was still and silent, lost in concentration, from the moment she started until the very second she finished her History of Magic essay.

"I'll be having words with Granger the next time we see her," she said, savagely pressing a full-stop at the end of her roll of parchment. "She's clearly been a terrible influence on you."

Harry stopped fingering his Potions textbook and chuckled. "I don't know, Fi." He peered down at her elegant handwriting and the concise but detailed – and no doubt brilliant – discussion on the pointlessness of fourteenth century witch burnings. "You complain until the Thestrals show, but you're secretly a right little swot, you know that?"

Effie was really smart, one of the brightest in their class, and would probably have been at the top of their year if she bothered to put her mind to it (an opinion that Harry never voiced around Hermione). But, as it happened, she was more interested in less gradable endeavours, such as experimenting with existing spells and practising advanced pieces of magic for the thrill of fiddling with something new and exciting (which Hermione vocally disapproved of).

Harry didn't think he would be half as good at magic, or a fraction as good at school, if Effie wasn't around. Hermione's academic enthusiasm wasn't quite as motivating as the challenge of trying to keep up with the indomitable Effie Vance.

"Who are you calling 'little', you scrawny git?" retorted Effie, grinning and throwing Harry's pillow at him.

Although Harry was, in actual fact, scrawny, he felt offended and threw it right back at her. He couldn't not rise to her challenge.

"Take it back!" shouted Effie, her laughter making it difficult for her to pretend being mad at him.

Fights were always pretend, for Harry and Effie. He didn't think that they had ever been really, truly angry at each other over anything, in all the time they had known one another.

"Nah." Harry laughed louder. Effie was, in her own right, a swot. A mad, brilliant, carelessly clever swot.

There was little headway made on their homework after she tackled him off his bed, down onto the floor.


Ms Vance and Professor Lupin kept a tight leash on Harry and Effie when they went to Diagon Alley for their third year spellbooks and school supplies. Effie, in particular, needed new black work robes because she had grown at least an inch since her last fitting during the Easter holidays. She was easily the tallest girl in their year, gleefully topping a disgruntled Ron when they met up with him, Hermione and their respective families at the famous wizarding pub, the Leaky Cauldron – found on Charing Cross Road for those who knew where to look.

"Just you wait, Vance," grumbled Ron, flattening his short, flaming red hair that Effie had mercilessly ruffled. "I'll make a midget out of you in no time."

"That's hardly a proper way to say happy birthday, Weasley," sniffed a newly thirteen-year-old Effie.

Effie, Ron and Hermione had asked their parents to leave the annual back-to-school trip to Diagon Alley for the last day of the holidays. The thirty-first of August was Effie's birthday, and she had been unsubtly angling for a Firebolt since setting her eyes on it in Which Broomstick? that summer.

Before even seeing it in person, Harry had decided that the moving photographs of the Firebolt broomstick in the wizarding magazine were a thing of sublime beauty, with its super-fine ash handle and diamond-hard polish. He heartily agreed with Effie's desire to replace her Nimbus 2001, because it was the same broomstick model that a schoolyard bully of theirs, Draco Malfoy, had used to bribe his way onto the Slytherin house Quidditch team at Hogwarts.

Harry was the proud owner of a Nimbus 2000, and had been chosen for the Seeker position on the Gryffindor house team in his first year – the youngest player in a century – as a result of an unfriendly incident with Malfoy. Effie had astonishingly earned a spot in their second year, after convincing the Gryffindor Captain, Oliver Wood, to hold try-outs, despite the fact that the team wasn't in need of any new members.

Harry had initially been nervous, as well as a bit hurt, because Effie had filled in for him to victory when he was unconscious for the last game of the season, their first year; but it turned out that she didn't care much for Seeking. He belatedly remembered that she preferred Chasing above anything else.

Katie Bell had lost her Chaser position as a result of Effie's success, but was a really good sport about it. She had later told Harry in confidence that she wasn't too broken up about Wood's decision. House Quidditch had dominated her life at school to the extent that she didn't have any friends in her own year because she always spending time with her fellow Chasers in the one above her, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet.

Effie would never have that problem, because she would always have Harry.

As inconceivably confident and capable as she was, Harry was unsurprised to see Effie immediately fit in with the team, despite her contentious beginnings. Her early, steady growth spurt had helped her seamless integration into the Gryffindor team line-up, and it was short, skinny Harry who sometimes felt like the odd one out. It hadn't crossed his mind, however, to begrudge the unbridled happiness of his best and oldest friend. She was insufferably delighted with herself for weeks, but winning that spot had put a bright smile on her face that Harry wouldn't have exchanged for anything in the world.

"Imagine if you'd been born a day later," jested Harry, tickling her ribs, "you'd probably be married to Creevey by now, if only to get him to shut up." Just because he loved Effie more than life itself, it didn't mean he was willing to deprive himself of the enjoyment that came with teasing the snot out of her.

The very next day, the first of September, was when Hogwarts students returned to school. If Ms Vance had given birth to her daughter a handful of minutes later, Effie would have been in the year below Harry, Ron and Hermione; and stuck in lessons with an excruciatingly starry-eyed Colin Creevey, who had never made a secret of being besotted with her from the day they met.

Harry would always cherish the impressively vast range of disturbed expressions that graced Effie's face in February. She had been followed around all day, from class to class, by dwarves delivering her musical Valentines, sung aloud for everyone to hear – most of them from a blindly hopeful Creevey.

Harry quickly found himself in a steel-tight headlock, courtesy of one Effie Vance. He blamed the advantages of her ambidexterity and not that she was actually a great deal stronger than him, with her deceptively slender Quaffle-throwing arms. He was a growing young man and a Gryffindor, and he had his pride.

Hermione tutted. "You're such children. Honestly," she said, and then loftily returned to her productive conversation with Professor Lupin about their upcoming Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons.

Ron valiantly threw himself into the scuffle to support who he thought was the underdog of the fight – mistaken though he was, assisting Harry – and none of them noticed that Ms Vance had tapped the special brick in one of the walls enclosing the dingy courtyard behind the grimy old pub, opening the archway entrance to the spectacular sights of Diagon Alley.

"Where to first?" asked Hermione, electing to ignore the flailing mass of barely adolescent limbs behind her. "Flourish and Blotts?" she suggested eagerly.

"Yeah!" Effie easily extracted herself from the boys and tossed her loose, waist-length hair out of her face. "Nice thinking, Hermione. Let's get the boring stuff out of the way first."

Hermione shouldn't have looked as scandalised as she did. She'd had two years – more than enough time – to get used to Effie's largely indifferent attitude towards the non-practical side of magic. Effie was a devoted connoisseur of all manner of flashes and bangs.

"We actually saved it for after lunch at the Leaky, hoping to run into you before we went," confessed Harry cheekily, earning a betrayed jaw-drop from Effie. "We already got everything else with Ms Vance and Mr – Professor Lupin."

Harry dodged Effie's retaliatory elbow and joined Hermione and Professor Lupin, who were advancing down the winding, cobbled street close behind Ms Vance and Hermione's parents. Mr and Mrs Granger were Muggles who had been surprised to learn that their daughter was a witch, but were familiar enough with Diagon Alley, after accompanying her for a couple of years now, to know where to go.

The Grangers were much less reverent than Petunia Dursley was about the Vances' Muggle peerage, though certainly a tad bit too respectful than Effie was interested in being treated.

Effie liked obliterating her opponents in Quidditch and football, and avidly followed Scottish rugby. She wasn't interested in being a prim and proper lady. She, Harry and Ron had to be physically dragged away from the gleaming storefront of Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"C'mon, lads and lass," said Professor Lupin before Ms Vance or Hermione could get a stern word in, "you can ogle to your heart's content after you've gotten your textbooks."

"Whatever, Professor," said Effie insouciantly, grabbing Harry and Ron's hands and running towards the bookstore.

The manager had frustrated tears in his eyes by the time Hermione and the adults caught up to them. They had informed Mr Stewart that they required three copies of The Monster Book of Monsters for their new Care of Magical Creatures class – Harry, mercifully, already had one, and they didn't need to order four. Mr Stewart and his assistant, Miss Head, looked like they were about to pass out by the time they hastily handed them over, having been bitten no less than a dozen times this day alone.

"What else can we help you with?" said Mr Stewart tightly, straining to remain composed.

Hermione's face lit up and started rattling off less perilous titles, whereas Harry and Ron had to recheck their booklists. Distracted, Effie had wandered off while hugging, bouncing and then tenderly petting her Monster book in her arms.

When they had to choose their extra subjects for third year, Hermione, naturally, signed up for everything.

"But you're Muggle-born!" Ron had said incredulously in the Gryffindor common room last spring, shaking his head at her insistence on taking Muggle Studies.

He then proceeded to let Hermione harangue him into joining her, after some additional prodding (read: goading) from Effie. By the time they were done, Ron had set himself up for at least three years of Muggle Studies, Arithmancy, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures.

Effie had been called into Professor McGonagall's office immediately after the announcement came out.

"What'd you do this time?" Harry had laughed, expecting to hear a righteous tale of wrongdoing, ending with her getting a week's worth of detention from their Head of House; but he felt put out that she hadn't thought to include him, not to mention slightly concerned.

Effie's antics had a tendency to get quickly out of hand whenever Harry wasn't around to reign her in. Having known her the best and the longest, he was the only one of their friends she really listened to when her mind was set on doing something stupid.

Fortunately, this time, his worries were unfounded.

"Gonnie still thinks I need a firm hand when it comes to any and all my decision-making," she said offhandedly. "Impressed that she doesn't want me taking any of the soft options. Thinks I'll get bored and blow up the classroom or something."

Effie had grinned broadly, her next words not helping her case against Professor McGonagall's intervention. "They cover pyromancy in Divination, you know …"

Much to dismay of Hogwarts' teaching staff, Effie ended up picking Divination and Care of Magical Creatures, but Professor McGonagall was mollified by her other choices, Arithmancy and the Study of Ancient Runes. All of which, she would be sharing with Harry and Hermione.

Harry seemed to have made a career out of following Effie's lead whenever she wasn't following his, and chose the same electives as her, certain that everything would work out all right as long as they were together.

Harry, Effie and Ron emerged from Flourish and Blotts with Mr Head heartily waving at them in their wake. Effie had shown him how endearingly docile her Monster Book of Monsters was after stroking it like she did Eli when he was in need of affection – which, as a very loveable dog used to being lavished with attention, was often.

Tearful with relief, Mr Head had insisted on giving them their books free of charge. However, he made sure to specify their school textbooks when he saw the small mountain of miscellaneous materials that Hermione was still in the process of compiling.

It was sans a preoccupied Hermione and their new books, which had all been dumped into Ms Vance's pearly Opaleye dragonhide handbag – enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm – that Harry, Effie and Ron sprinted back to Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"Still hanging out with the riff-raff, dear cousin?" slunk the lazy drawl of Draco Malfoy.

Effie haughtily looked down her nose as she, Harry and Ron walked further into the store where Malfoy was idly fingering a wooden box of Snitches, the small, flying golden balls that Seekers had to catch in order to end a game of Quidditch.

"Still searching for some marvellous contraption unknown to wizardkind to miraculously catch the Snitch for you?" said Effie coolly.

Harry and Ron chuckled none too quietly. Malfoy had to lift his head considerably to meet her eyes.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Vance," he sneered. "Things are looking pretty Black these days, wouldn't you say?"

Harry balled his hands into painfully tight fists and felt Ron stiffen beside him.

"You tell me, cousin," said Effie icily.

There it was again: "cousin".

Effie and Malfoy were second cousins through her father and his mother; through the Black sides of their parentage. Once important and powerful, the "Noble and Most Ancient" House of Black was now a largely disgraced, mostly defunct old pure-blood family of (allegedly) entirely magical descent. It was a connection that Effie ignored and Malfoy only acknowledged when he wanted to get under her skin.

Harry wasn't in the habit of letting Malfoy try for long. Effie could eviscerate him if the fancy struck her, and Harry didn't want to lose her to a cell next to Sirius Black, just because the prejudiced prick was in the mood to be mouthy.

"Where's Daddy dearest?" asked Harry nonchalantly. "Not mad at you again, being beaten by a Muggle-born and some half-bloods on every exam?" After overhearing a cold conversation between father and son in a dodgy antique store that he and Effie had sneakily followed them into the year before, he knew that Lucius Malfoy was displeased by this very fact, and immensely disappointed in Draco for allowing it to happen.

Ron had snorted loudly and was sardonically grimacing at Malfoy.

Malfoy's pale eyes shone angrily, flashing silver the same way that Effie's did when she got into an uncontrollable rage. "I'd ask you where yours is, Potter, except you don't have one." His expression mercurially settled, and a malevolent smile curled his thin lips. "Because of hers."

"What are you talking about?" said Harry hotly while Effie growled, "Shut up, Malfoy."

There was a heavy pause in which Harry, Effie and Ron had no words, stuck processing what they had just heard. Malfoy's smug countenance foretold further trouble, though he didn't wear his conceit even a sliver as well as Effie.

"You don't know, do you, Potter?" Malfoy laughed lowly. "Vance's shameful scarlet mother hasn't told you anything, has she?" He smirked at Harry, eyes maliciously flickering between him and Effie, who was violently vibrating on the spot. "How about your precious girlfriend? Has she been keeping her dirty little family secrets from you too?"

Malfoy was pathetically splayed on the floor with a bloody, broken nose before Harry could respond. Effie's left hand was red and shaking, although her face was bone-white.

It wasn't the first time Effie had attacked Malfoy under provocation, but it was the first time that she had ever drawn blood.


There was no secret keeping now that Malfoy had let the Kneazle out of its basket. After vehement but ultimately failed protestations from Ron's mother, the adults eventually agreed to tell their children and charges about the essential facts on the Sirius Black situation.

"Do you really want to send our children back to school with that hanging over them?" said Mrs Weasley shrilly. "For heaven's sake, they're happy not knowing!"

The adults told them eventually.

"Oi!" shouted Fred, one of Ron's elder brothers.

"We're not children!" opposed George, Fred's twin brother.

"Well …" Fred eyed Harry, Effie, Ron, Hermione and – his, George and Ron's younger sister – Ginny. "… they are."

"OI!" yelled Ron, affronted and thumping the surface of the weathered wooden table he was seated at. Tom, the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron, had put four tables together in the parlour to accommodate the seven Weasleys, three Grangers, two Vances, Professor Lupin and Harry for dinner. It was a tight fit and tensions were high after the altercation between Effie and Malfoy, and the suggestive nugget of information that he had dangled before her, Harry and Ron.

"Excuse me," imperiously piped up Percy, the eldest of Ron's brothers that were present, "I'm of age – and Head Boy."

"Head Berk," corrected Fred with a perfectly straight face.

"Humungous Bighead," stoically pronounced George.

Hermione's arms rose and fell in defeat. "If we're basing this off of maturity here –"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Effie, "we know, Mi, you're the grown-uppiest of us all."

Harry was glowering next to Effie, looking at Ms Vance and Professor Lupin. He had never raised his voice to them before, but he was getting closer and closer to it as each second passed. He didn't know exactly what Malfoy was alluding to, but he knew enough to be angry that it had been kept from him by the grown-ups he trusted and cared for most. What did Malfoy mean, that Effie's father was responsible for Harry not having one?

For James Potter having died.

Having been murdered by Voldemort.

Harry took Effie's hand and abruptly stood, pulling her up with him. "We deserve to know," he hotly addressed the room. "We are directly involved." He held up his and Effie's clasped hands. "We deserve to know what's going on."

"Harry, dear," said Mrs Weasley placatingly, "this is hardly –"

"And Harry and Effie'll tell us anything you tell them," said Ron firmly, nodding towards Hermione, who defiantly nodded alongside of him.

"Personally," said Professor Lupin hoarsely, "I think it better that we tell them what they need to know." He pursed his dry lips. "Lest an unreliable source spouts some tall tales, and we're not around to correct them."

Ms Vance's thoughtful frown uncreased. "Molly, you know how the kids are. And they're approaching that difficult age, too."

"Hey!" cried Effie indignantly.

"We can't keep treating them like children, dear," Mr Weasley reasoned to his wife. "Ron and Harry, Effie and Hermione, they're thirteen years old and we need to put them on their guard. It's hard, I know, but think about the reality of the situation, not what we wish it was."

Ginny sank into her seat, hoping not to be noticed. Harry was unsure if she did that because of the uncomfortable nature of the inevitable conversation or because she wanted to remain in the room as a forgotten fly on the wall. Knowing his Weasleys, he would place his gold on the latter.

"We'll run off into danger half-cocked with half the information if you don't tell us something," said Effie unapologetically, swinging the arm holding hands with Harry. "We always do."

"Well, I never …" said Mrs Weasley weakly.

Harry would have smiled if his hard mouth wasn't so set in anger.

Ms Vance sighed long-sufferingly. "I wouldn't have put it in quite those words, but yes. Effie has a point." She looked solemnly at Professor Lupin, her breathing silent but her chest rising and falling heavily. "Remus, I think it's time we tell them."

Remus smiled sadly. "Yes, I do think it is."

After a final imploring glance towards her husband to put a stop to this, Mrs Weasley exhaled sharply from her nose. "All right." She pointed at her youngest child. "Ginny – upstairs – bedroom, now."

"Mum! That's not fair! I –"

"Right now, Ginny."

Ginny roughly got out of her chair, scraping its legs on the grubby wooden floor, and mutinously stormed up the creaky stairs. Harry thought that was the most noise she had ever made in front of him. She always became rather shy and embarrassed whenever she saw him, like Ron had been around Effie before they became friends – or, in Ron's articulate phrasing, "I got used to her."

"Well?" said Effie expectantly, stamping her foot once they all heard Ginny's door slam shut.

"Well …" said Professor Lupin slowly.

"Where should we start this?" said Mr Weasley anxiously.

"How about starting where you haven't told us anything?" said Harry shortly.

"You know …" said Effie, "after most of the war stuff, blah, blah, blah – Voldemort wanting to kill Harry's family, blah, blah –"

The reaction to Voldemort's name was a mixed bag of predictable and not, because most everyone in the wizarding world did not dare speak it. The Weasleys were up in arms immediately, shrieking and sputtering and shuddering. The rest took it in stride; or, in the case of the Grangers, with mild trepidation and a healthy dollop of inquisitiveness. Harry wanted to ask Hermione if she had shown her parents the books she bought before first year to acquaint herself with the wizarding world, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts or Modern Magical History, though he didn't think it was necessary.

"– WHAT did my father do to Harry's dad?"


A/N: I don't have the time to stick to a regular writing schedule, and post things willy-nilly, so only hop on this ride if you're a masochist or looking for some fic ideas for yourself!

There is no hoarding here. Please take anything I write as a prompt! I only ask that you send me a link to what you've written. I write what I'm in search of reading myself.

Cross-posed on AO3 and Tumblr.