Wow! Huge reaction for chapter 42, though I guess I should have expected that. Early update this time, because I'm going away again this weekend!

Thanks everyone for your reviews, I'll reply to them in one big group: lizy2000, thechosenbibliophile, Liily01, LisbethMegalomania, Nik180, Guest (x2), Bronzelove, EternalVeriti, rainyleafxoxo, creelluka, Ash-Caro-Lynn, ScarletShad0w.

Dumbledore is definitely kind of the bad guy in this one, he doesn't really care that much about Slytherins. I'm glad you're all excited about the reaction and hope you won't be too disappointed! Other than that, I think we all agree that Charles is an idiot and hope that James hasn't found out. I know you're all waiting for some good news, but sorry, everyone has to wait a little longer!

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my writing too!

When she Flooed into Slughorn's office, she was shaking all over. She hadn't even managed to Floo properly, crashing through the grating in a heap of ash and smoke and startling Slughorn, who drew a line of ink across his whole parchment.

'My dear girl,' the teacher said in a shocked voice. 'Whatever is the matter with you?'

Emma was too busy coughing to be able to reply, so her Head of House helped her up by the arm, dusting off the embers clinging to her shoulder. She looked up at him, disorientated. She knew she recognised him, but somehow her mind wasn't properly linking notions together. School... teacher... she thought slowly. Am I supposed to be doing something? Immediately, his expression of frustration turned to one of worry.

'Not to worry, not to worry,' he said almost to himself, taking his wand out. 'Nothing a little spell can't fix. I daresay that seeing your mother's physical state after the Dragon Pox must have been quite a shock to your system. Hurry along now dear, it's almost time for lunch anyway. Some hot tea will do you some good before your next class. Honestly, why Dumbledore insists on pulling children out of class like this instead of waiting for a proper reunion at the weekend is beyond me. You're the fourth to come through my fireplace this month, though it must be said with the most spectacular entry.'

Slughorn's amiable chatter soothed Emma the whole way to the door, where he sent her on her way with another little pat on the shoulder. Obediently, she followed his instructions and made her way to the Great Hall. It seemed like she needed to remind herself even to keep blinking. Everything was so disjointed that each time she closed her eyes, she needed an extra half a second to open them. If she were to speak, she was sure that she would have slurred. She piled her plate full of bread and jam, simple foods that didn't need much attention. The bread was still warm from the oven, white fluffy rolls that would probably have been better suited to the breakfast table rather than lunch. She touched the inside of one, marvelling at the softness of it.

Presently, she was joined by the other sixth years. They chatted animatedly as they sat down, greeting her before going back to their conversation about their Herbology class. With an inward sigh of relief, she realised that none of them were in Arithmancy and so wouldn't know to expect that something was wrong. So she tried to listen in to the chatter, but somehow couldn't concentrate on the words. Her mind seemed to just float off blankly and when Alecto made the remark that she was even quieter than Regulus that day, she made her voice croak and mimed a sore throat. This earned her sympathetic looks and a mug of hot tea from Rabastan. She wasn't quite sure how tea had appeared at the lunch table either - though Slughorn had mentioned it, she had only ever seen water and pumpkin juice being served at midday.

She was so wrapped up in buttering her bread the right way that she hardly noticed the hall emptying. It was only after a tap from Alecto on her shoulder that she realised that it was time for Charms. Thanking Merlin that the next subject on her list was her easiest and that the rest of the day was composed of free periods, Emma vowed to pay more attention to what was going on, inwardly trying to shake herself awake.

Fifteen minutes later, she was cursing Merlin for landing her in the Charms class that was practicing the Patronus charm. She had forgotten that Mondays were normal Charms classes, whereas Thursdays and Fridays were the Defence Against the Dark Arts and Charms team up. Professor Flitwick was encouraging them to think up happy memories, but Emma couldn't think of a single one.

'As far as I'm concerned, I never had a daughter,' her father repeated in her head, whenever she tried to remember something. 'The girl has gone quite mad.'

'Emma,' Sophie hissed.

She blinked her glassy eyes, returning to her surroundings. Oddly, it felt a bit like vertigo. She turned her head slowly towards the other girl. 'What's wrong?'

It turned out that she spoke normally after all, though the words felt foreign on her tongue.

'You were saying strange things,' Sophie was looking at her dubiously. 'You kept repeating "the girl has gone quite mad" under your breath. It's disconcerting.'

'Sorry,' Emma replied, casting around in her mind for an explanation. The mental concentration took every ounce of energy she had. 'It's part of my homework for Arithmancy. "The girl has gone quite mad" is the cursed line in one of the books we're studying. We have to figure out how the curse was made.'

'Such a weird class,' Sophie replied, satisfied with the response. 'But we're in Charms now, okay? I know you're great at it and all, but some of us actually need to practice.'

Poor Sophie, Emma thought. She had worked as hard as she could during the Charms O.W.L.s, but somehow it had all trickled out during the summer, due to her faulty long-term memory. She had difficulty with most of the spells now, let alone the Patronus Charm. Emma was sure that Flitwick was going to gently tell her to give it up before her N.E.W.T.s, so that she could concentrate on the things she was better at. She had only chosen Charms because it was one of the core subjects and she didn't know what to do later in life.

So rather than let herself fall back into her trance-like state, Emma chose to help Sophie with her Patronus Charm. In theory of course, it was easy. She corrected the other girl's stance and tried to get her to think of a happy memory, which incidentally was of her family reunited for Christmas. Her sister had been studying in South America for the past three years and was finally back in England. A warm white glow began to radiate from Sophie's wand and she clapped her hands in excitement - promptly breaking the spell. Emma gave her a small smile despite herself. Somehow the Patronus had lifted some of the weight she hadn't realised was pressing in on her.

Flitwick appeared beside them, all three feet of him beaming. 'Ten points to Slytherin. Well done Miss Parkinson, well done!'

Alecto gave them a thumbs up from where she was practicing on the other side of the room with Regulus. Suddenly, Emma remembered the seventh-year prefects new "rule". It seemed so long ago now and so meaningless. On the day, she remembered that she was bursting with the need to prove Slytherin was as good as they thought it was, but now all she could summon was apathy. It's not as if you haven't had fights before, she tried to cheer herself up. Maybe it'll all blow over in a couple of days.

Three days later, the Sunday post arrived. Emma had somehow managed to get through the last two days without even Regulus suspecting something, the others having attributed her lack of energy to her "cold". She eagerly scanned the mail, searching for their parents' owl. Mum has to have talked some sense into him, she thought. She always does. She's always there for me, even though I might not always see it. But it wasn't there.

There was definitely an owl swooping towards her part of the table though, a great snow white one, and as it grew nearer she could make out its beady little eyes trained on her. It landed with an elegant flutter of its wings and whilst Lucinda and Helen cooed over its beautiful feathers, Emma had eyes only for the envelope and its flowing writing not unlike the bird itself.

Miss Emma Potter

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Scotland

She frowned. This was not the writing of her mother, nor that of her father. Though Narcissa's writing was elegant, it was not so curving. She did not recognise the script at all. She turned it around to see the name of the sender, only to be confronted with a seal that read: St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Even more bemused, she tore it open and began to read.

Dear Miss Potter,

It brings us great sorrow to be the bearers of such unfortunate news. Mrs Natalie Potter, of room 34 of the Magical Bugs and Disease Ward, passed away last night after a severe relapse of Dragon Pox. Though her passing was kept as painless as possible, we believe that the relapse was caused by wanton stress and anxiety at a critical time of the healing procedure.

Please accept our deepest condolences,

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Out of some kind of desperation, Emma checked the envelope for any other parchment. As luck would have it, there was another short letter, folded in half. She opened it eagerly, almost ripping it in the process.

Dear Miss Potter,

It is with deepest regret that I must inform you of the situation at hand. Mr Charles Potter has been detained and put into quarantine after coming into contact with a victim of Dragon Pox. As there are no living relatives able to inform you of this, I have taken matters into my own hands,

Please accept my most heartfelt apology,

Healer Henry James

Suddenly, Emma wished that there had not been a second letter. Her whole body felt as though it had been dipped in ice until the very marrow of her bones had frozen over. If she had ever experienced the effect of a Dementor, she would have compared it to that. Her brain - which had been working like treacle for the past few days - seemed to have shut down, and she found herself walking in the empty hallways of her thoughts. Her body took over, wanting to protect her from this danger, but not quite knowing how. Automatically, she folded both letters back into the envelope as if they had been nothing but greeting cards.

'Just a late birthday card from my Great Aunt Ursula,' she said casually, before eating the last of her cardboard toast, forcing it down with a gulp and strolling out of the Great Hall.

She kept up this pace the whole way through the castle, strolling through as if she were out for a walk around the corridors, until she found herself at the Astronomy Tower. There, she hugged her knees and rocked herself back and fro, unsure as what to do. Her whole body felt like it was in an unknown situation. She should be crying her eyes out, she should be throwing a tantrum, she should be doing anything but this. But she wasn't. And somehow, the automatic motion helped a bit. She tried to think if she saw James at the Great Hall. She couldn't remember. She wasn't sure if she wanted to remember. Somehow, she thought that she would know, that she would have sensed it if her mother, the woman who had carried her for nine months, had died. But she had no premonition. She had thought that her mother would get better. She had thought that her mother would have made everything better.

After a while, she was relaxed, though she still couldn't feel anything. She tried to force herself to grieve, but she wouldn't. All she could think was that somehow they had made a mistake and that another owl would be sent in the morning. There was no other option.

One week later, another owl hadn't arrived. Somehow, Slughorn had known, because he put Emma and James together for Potions that week. Emma wasn't surprised to see James as dejected as he had been when they had been called away from Apparition class, but she was surprised at how serious he had become. He added every ingredient by the book, didn't look around once, and when she peeked over his shoulder to see what he was writing, she saw the Potions class written word for word in his neatest handwriting. The sight of it sent a chill down her spine and made her feel sick to her stomach. She thought that she could have gotten through anything if only James was there too. But James wasn't there. Not the real James, anyway. This one was a robot James, going through the motions, but the personality inside seemed to have shrivelled up.

Just as she had twisted her stomach into knots tied upon knots, because it looked like James was going to leave without even acknowledging her presence, he gave her hand a quick squeeze. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so close to her twin, and instinctively she threw her arms around him and hugged him as hard as she could. She had never felt so grateful in her life that it was hard for James to even catch a cold. She couldn't imagine what would have happened if it had been he who was in quarantine.

But just as quickly as he had shown her some affection, he pushed away, muttering that he was going to be late for his next class. That, more than anything, hurt and Emma wondered for the first time if her father had mentioned their last fight to her brother. He hadn't even looked her in the eyes. She hadn't seen James since, in any case.

Now it was Saturday evening and Emma was nursing a Firewhisky, in honour of Alecto's birthday. It had been surprisingly easy to pretend everything was normal, when she felt so dead inside. She supposed that it was because there wasn't another emotion to conflict with. She felt a little guilty that she couldn't muster the happiness she would have for her best friend, and very guilty that she hadn't even thought of a creative present when Alecto had made so much effort for her seventeenth. Instead, Emma had gotten her friend a new book of Dark spells that she had been wanting to try out, a Quick Quotes Quill and a box of Honeydukes. Alecto had thanked her without a trace of sarcasm though, so she supposed it must have been alright.

She looked over at the redhead now. She was laughing and showing off her new wizard's watch, the one traditionally given by the parents on your seventeenth. Emma was suddenly overcome by a vision of a watch shattering to pieces on a pristine hospital floor. The chill she had felt one week ago in the Astronomy tower returned with such a force that she put her goblet down, for fear of breaking it. A familiar lump found its way to her throat. Quietly, she slipped away from the conversation into the dungeon corridor, swinging the alcove wall back into place.

She felt like a turtle that had been dropped from a great height by the bird that attacked it: At first she had shrunk into herself, pretending that so long as she stayed in her hollow shell, nothing would happen. But the whistling wind had grown louder and louder, and she had peeked out only to see the ground rushing towards her. The scary truth was staring at her in the face, so she let herself go, sliding to the floor pathetically as she gave great shuddering gasps.

Logically, she recognised it as a panic attack much like the time Regulus had made her jump off her broom, but deep down she knew that it was much more than that. She curled up with her head in her knees, trying to take breath after breath, but no matter how deeply she tried to breathe in, it felt like there was never enough oxygen to cover the gaping hole she had found in her heart. Ten minutes later, she still hadn't stopped and her heart was beating so wildly that she was afraid it was going to burst. She tried to concentrate on calming herself down, but only succeeded in making herself even more nervous. She felt like she wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run to, because her shadow would always follow. She clenched her fists, getting angry. Why didn't she wait for me to say goodbye? Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she do anything? Didn't she want to live? Did she even try to live?

Suddenly, she was enveloped in warmth. She huddled into it, realising when she breathed in the smell that it was Regulus and that he was holding her the way she had held him after their Occlumency lesson. The way she had told him her mother had held her. She cuddled closer, trying to infuse the warmth into her own icy body, but the cold was too deep to be thawed out. Then she tried to push him away, but he only held her tighter.

'You don't have a Great Aunt Ursula,' was the only explanation he offered.

'You should be at the party,' Emma reprimanded half-heartedly, not wanting to tell him what had happened. If you say it, then it becomes real. She hadn't hit the ground yet.

'No one will miss me,' he replied in a soft voice.

She doubted that. Regulus wasn't much of a talker, but she always knew when he wasn't there. It always felt like something was lacking slightly. Although it was nothing compared to how she felt now.

'I think Sophie might,' she added, a little too late. It seemed like everything she did was a little too late.

'I don't care about Parkinson,' he said simply.

They lapsed back into silence. Emma was turning her father's words around and around in her head. As far as I'm concerned, I never had a daughter. She wanted to know if her mother wanted to talk to her too, if she had said anything after calling her name, something that Emma would now never know. So she did the only thing she knew how to do when she was hurt - she pulled away again.

'I don't even know why you're here,' she said, regretting her actions even as she spoke. Her teeth were chattering.

'I haven't forgotten what you did for me when I needed someone,' he replied. 'You left the envelope on the table last Sunday.'

If Emma hadn't been so wrapped up in her grief, she would have been shocked at his confession. Then again, she wouldn't have let him fold her back into his arms either. Against her will, her shivers turned to shudders. Somehow, having someone know what had happened made the weight on her heart lift just the tiniest bit. But it also made it harder to keep it all locked away. She hadn't told anyone, both ashamed at having a family that didn't want her and it being too late to rectify it. If I say it out loud, then it will become real. Maybe someone would tell her that it was just a mix-up at the hospital, swooping down and saving her turtle-like shell from shattering on the rocks below, the way her watch had shattered her heart.

Slowly, she realised that this was real, whether she said it or not. Never again would her mother bake a fresh cake and forget her wand somewhere. Never again would Emma smell roast potatoes and know that they were going to sit down next to the crackling fire as a happy family again. Never again would her mother be able to make all of her sorrows disappear. Never again would she see Natalie Potter's bright blue eyes crinkle when she was deep in thought or when she was holding in her laughter.

'Why did she leave me?' Emma asked Regulus pitifully, looking up at him as reality finally started to sink in.

He shook his head in reply - there was no good answer for that. That was the moment when the truth hit her and the real tears came, pouring out like a fountain as she sobbed uncontrollably into his robes, crying even harder when he stroked her hair the way her mother never would again.