Hey guys! I'm a mess of a writer right now, so I apologise in advance if this seems sloppy. I have trouble connecting different parts of the fic in my head. Also, just a head's up, I'm on holiday next week, so I definitely won't post next weekend, and maybe not the weekend after (it depends on whether I can hammer out a new chapter in time).

So, as usual, thanks so much to my reviewers! Especially since some have seemed to go AWOL, so thanks so much to Isanxd, Cae-Leigh Anne, Nik1804 and lizyeh2000 for reviewing this week!

Thanks also to Summer (summersaults16) for managing to beta this on such short notice, and thanks in advance to VidereLux who will beta this shortly! I couldn't do it without you guys.

Three months later, Emma was feeling mostly back to normal.

The Ministry had proved itself more resilient than anyone had ever imagined, most likely due to the influence of Harold Minchum. The Minister for Magic was responsible for giving Barty Crouch and the Aurors full access to the Unforgivable Curses and doubling the amount of Dementors guarding Azkaban.

The Dark Lord had adopted a new tactic - the Imperius Curse. However, to use the Imperius effectively, he needed more followers in the Ministry, specifically, those whose reputations were untarnished. Rabastan would never get in, not with Rodolphus's infamy, but Regulus, Emma and Severus would probably get in, thanks to Slughorn's connections.

Still, they needed excellent marks to get even remotely useful jobs, and Emma had found herself buried under a mountain of work. She regretted coasting through the better part of seventh year every day. Without James's tutoring in Transfiguration, she didn't think she would have gotten more than a "Poor".

And now, the exams had started.

'Ready, Ems?' Rabastan asked her. He grabbed the crumpet she had been playing with off of her plate, munching with gusto.

How that boy managed was beyond her. Emma was actually impressed at how he had risen to the task of finding out the rest of the Order members at Hogwarts. He had become indispensable in the eyes of the Dark Lord and had become the happiest she had ever seen him over the course of the last weeks.

Her eyes slid over to the opposite side of the table, where Regulus's black hair could be seen peeking over a mound of books. Under any other circumstances, she would have poked fun at him, but today she stayed quiet. They had both agreed that the Dark Lord would give them more free reign the better their marks were.

'I for one am going to be pleased when this week's over,' Lucinda announced when it became clear that Emma wasn't going to answer. 'Maybe people will start to live a little. You're all starting to look like the Inferi from the newspaper.'

Emma raised an eyebrow at her friend. Barty took one look at his half-finished breakfast and pushed it away in disgust.

'On that lovely note,' he said, dusting off his robes. 'I'm late for Potions. Good luck, everyone.'

A chorus of thanks followed him out of the room.

'I guess we'd better leave too,' Rabastan sighed, giving the toast one last longing stare. 'I wish I hadn't woken up so late. My stomach's going to be growling all the way through.'

'Oh, for Merlin's sake,' Lucinda rolled her eyes, wrapping up four pieces of bread in a napkin. She handed it to him. 'Here. Let's go.'

They all had Charms first thing, in the Entrance Hall, since the fifth years were going to be using the Great Hall later. They trooped out of the room and looked around for their name tags.

Emma found hers, right next to Remus Lupin, who was already sitting down, quill in hand and three ink pots lined up in front of him. At Emma's glance, he gave a sheepish smile.

'I always get worried I'll run out of ink,' he explained.

'No judging here,' she replied, getting her own things out. 'It's a good idea. I just wish we didn't have to enter so early. I hate waiting for the subjects to fall.'

Remus agreed and they fell into a companionable silence until the papers were distributed.

By the end of the week, Emma was feeling reasonably confident. She had successfully turned vinegar into wine on the first try, only missed three questions on the Transfiguration paper and had Wednesday off, since she didn't do Herbology. As they were waiting to be called up for DADA the next day, she and Rabastan were still poking fun at their respective partners.

'You should have seen your faces,' Rabastan stuttered through gasps of laughter. 'They were priceless. I can't believe Lucy refused to bring out the camera.'

'Yeah well, shit happens when some idiot manages to anger the Snargaluff plant!' Lucinda replied, glaring at the Gryffindor boys.

'Literally,' Rabastan quipped with a snort.

Emma followed her gaze, her cheeks hurting from smiling. 'I guess being bad with plants runs in the family.'

'It was his friend, Pettigrew,' Lucinda said angrily. 'And it took me a whole hour to remove the dragon dung from my hair.'

'You spent less time on it than Regulus, then,' Rabastan replied, his lips quirking with repressed laughter.

Emma studiously avoided Regulus's mutinous look. She was almost relieved when his name was called up.

All too soon, the words "Potter, Emma," sounded from the open doorway.

'That's me,' Emma gave Lucinda a wave. Rabastan had already been and gone. She entered the spare classroom. 'Hello again, Professor Tofty.'

'Hello, Miss Potter,' the wizened old wizard replied from behind his desk, noting down a few last remarks on the previous student's performance. 'Have a seat.'

Emma looked around. James was on the other side of the room, performing a silent Stunning Charm on the mannequin opposite him. Professor Marchbanks watched impassively, leaving no trace of her thoughts on her features.

'Here we are again, Miss Potter,' Professor Tofty announced, grasping Emma's attention. 'Let us hope that this goes as smoothly as the Charms examination, shall we?'

Emma nodded, feeling a little nervous. The replacement teacher for Amelia Bones was competent enough, but they didn't do nearly as much practical as Emma would have liked. She didn't think the raids with the Death Eaters would count as practice, either.

'We will start off with something easy. Can you perform the accurate spell to ward off Inferi on the mannequin opposite you?' the examiner flicked his wand towards a mannequin exactly like the one James had practiced on, and it transformed into a hideous corpse-like creature.

This is going to be easy, Emma thought with a grin. She had seen Inferi before, and this one had nothing on the real version's capabilities of inspiring fear - most likely because it was immobile. She conjured a perfect lasso of rope, using the circular movement of the spell to ensnare the fake Inferius's torso. It burst into flames, separating into two halves before Professor Tofty Vanished the remains.

'Good work,' Tofty approved. 'Though I expect you to use a variety of categories in your spells as we progress.'

He next conjured a large block of wood in the place of the mannequin.

'I want you to silently perform the Reductor Curse on this object,' Tofty instructed, picking up his quill.

Emma closed her eyes, forcibly reminded of the first time she had seen the Reductor Curse properly in action. Regulus had cursed the man's whole arm off, leaving nothing but a pile of dust in its wake. Since then, it had been used over and over by the Light and Dark side alike in the war. Taking a deep breath, she channelled all of her energy into her right hand, concentrating on the feeling the curse gave her when cast.

Reducto! she thought furiously.

The block of wood shuddered, then exploded into a shower of wood chips. Tofty nodded once more, clearing the rubbish with another wave of his wand.

The process went on for several more minutes, mostly involving silent curses and jinxes, but also the Protego Charm. Finally, they arrived at the bottom of Professor Tofty's page.

'So, I saw that this was a large part of the curriculum this year,' the examiner said, lifting his eyes to meet Emma's. 'However, I am aware that most witches and wizards are unable to conjure a fully fledged Patronus. So fear not if you do not know the form of your own; I will not be removing points for that. Take your time with this one.'

A sense of dread built in the pit of Emma's stomach. She hadn't been able to conjure even a wisp of white during the whole term. Then again, many others couldn't either. Still, she had read that only Dark wizards weren't able to conjure even the faintest trace of a Patronus later on in life. There was one particular case that stood out for her: that of one infamous Raczidian. Upon attempting to cast the spell, maggots flew out of his wand and devoured him alive.

Emma didn't want that to happen to her.

Despite what James might think, she knew she used more Dark spells than Light. She had an affinity with the magic of the shadows, and even though Charms was her best subject, the Patronus Charm was no friend of hers.

She took a deep breath - her standard procedure before all difficult spells - and tried to focus on her happiest memory. An image of winning the Quidditch Cup in sixth year flashed through her mind before she dismissed it. Ephemeral joy was not what was at hand here.

Suddenly, an image swam to the surface. She didn't remember feeling overly happy at that moment, but she felt a sense of deep contentment emanating from the memory, even now.

It was the summer before seventh year. Lucinda, Rabastan and Regulus had all come to Diagon Alley the day before they needed to get to King's Cross. They had spent most of their time at the ice cream parlour - the ice cream had been half-price, as the owner was getting ready to sell it and move on. That summer afternoon had been free of worries about the war and filled with funny anecdotes from school. They had mercilessly teased one another and stolen each other's ice cream sundaes as though they hadn't all ordered the same.

Grasping the memory with all of her might, Emma started to turn her wand in circles, faster and faster until she spoke the charm.

'Expecto Patronum!'

She opened her eyes, expecting to finally find out what her Patronus was, or at the very least, a ball of pure white light.

Instead, she was met with the sight of Professor Tofty looking at her with pity in his eyes. He made one final note on his paper, before bidding her goodbye and asking her to call in the next student.,

Regulus entered the small History of Magic room for his final exam of the week. His final exam at Hogwarts altogether, in fact. He spared a brief thought for Emma, who had Arithmancy. That was something he was glad to have avoided.

'Regulus Black?' a kindly voice inquired.

Regulus cleared his mind of all clutter and walked forwards. He clutched his papers tightly in one hand when he saw who was sat before him. Bathilda Bagshot, the most celebrated historian of the past two centuries.

Professor Binns had warned his N.E.W.T. students that she might be the examiner, since she had taught the subject before he became a professor, but Regulus hadn't believed him.

He half still didn't.

'That is I,' he replied, somewhat stiffly.

'And what work have you brought to us today?' the old witch asked with a creased smile.

Immediately, Regulus began to breathe more easily. Bathilda Bagshot looked genuinely interested, and this was one of the few subjects Regulus held dear.

'As you know, our class had to prepare a dossier on a neglected aspect of Wizarding history,' Regulus explained, placing his papers on the desk. He knew them by heart, anyway. 'I chose to study Parseltongue.'

'Did you have a particular reason?' Professor Bagshot asked, peering at the pages with bespectacled eyes.

'As a matter of fact, I did,' Regulus replied, clasping his hands behind his back. 'There are many misconceptions about the language and those who use it, and I wanted to disprove the myths.'

'Very well,' the examiner replied. 'It is a topic worthy of discussion. Could you tell me three key points of your paper?'

'The first myth would be that all Parselmouths are directly descended from Salazar Slytherin. In fact, the first documented human known to speak Parseltongue is Herpo the Foul. Several others come to mind, such as the famous Paracelsus - the first to have recorded anything about the language.

'The second legend I sought to disprove was that of the link between Parseltongue and the Dark Arts,' Regulus continued. 'This misconception is due to the fact that Herpo the Foul was also the inventor of the notorious Horxcrux, the darkest magic a wizard can conjure. It was inflamed further when it was revealed that Salazar Slytherin turned dark after founding Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, this begets the question - are all reptiles evil? Can a species truly be evil as a whole? I would argue that no, it cannot. Thus, Parseltongue cannot be associated with the Dark Arts, as its primary function is to serve as a rudimentary language between different types of Squamata.

'Lastly, I would like to discuss the supposed fact that Parseltongue is impossible to learn, save through blood heritage. This has never proved to be the case with any human language, and I do not believe that animal languages are any different. We may be born with the capacity to speak it or not - and this is due to a magical gene not unlike that of Metamorphmagi.

'However, it is possible to learn to understand Parseltongue as a language, and with this in mind I have included detailed notes about my own experience, plus several translations. With a willing teacher, it is possible to translate one's mother tongue into Parseltongue, and then imitate it. Whilst I have not found it possible to become fluent in Parseltongue or be able to think in the language, translation and imitation appear to be the next best thing.'

Regulus let his voice fade into silence. He wasn't sure how this news would be received, but he needn't have worried. Both Bathilda Bagshot and Professor Binns thanked him for his time, before lapsing into an animated discussion about the possibilities his paper could open.

Feeling calmer than when he had entered, Regulus left the room.

'Regulus,' a ghostly voice called, the telltale icy draft sweeping over his right side.

'My Lady,' Regulus greeted.

Few knew of the acquaintanceship between Regulus and the Grey Lady. After all, what did Ravenclaw's House ghost and a Slytherin boy have in common?

It had started when Regulus was eleven and had accidentally overheard the story of the Bloody Baron's death. He figured out a few weeks later that the Grey Lady was in fact none other than Helena Ravenclaw herself. In Regulus's opinion, anyone with eyes could have guessed. But Helena hadn't seen it that way. When Regulus had asked for her version of the story, she had been overjoyed that he hadn't settled for the Bloody Baron's tale.

Since then, she had taken a liking to him, sharing secrets and tales. She shared his fondness for history and little-known facts, and delighted in telling him about Albania, the land of the eagles.

'I overheard your N.E.W.T. presentation,' the Grey Lady said softly. 'I was glad the judges enjoyed it. I'm going to miss you when you're gone.'

'I'm sure there will be another curious eleven year old begging to take my place,' Regulus replied with a polite smile. He had discovered early on that Helena was the old fashioned sort.

'I don't think there will,' the ghost sighed wistfully. 'The last student whose company I enjoyed was nearly forty years ago. There are so few who understand the reading of history for knowledge's sake, even amongst my own students. He was a Slytherin, you know.'

'And this student,' Regulus wondered, 'he was interested in Parselmouths too? That's very rare.'

'Oh yes,' the Grey Lady replied. 'He had a vested interest, you see. He could actually speak the language - he was born with it. I think he would have enjoyed listening to you speak today. He was much like you, you know. He liked to hear about Albania too.'

'What was his name?' Regulus asked, unable to hide his curiosity. There was only one Parselmouth alive that Regulus knew of.

'Tom Riddle,' Helena Ravenclaw replied, her mouth curving into a bittersweet smile.