In spite of the perturbing prospect of her parents being former followers of You-Know-Who, Rook was happy. She had told Fred the truth, about everything. Miraculously, he didn't hate her. In fact, he said she was a good person and a good friend. She remembered his words exactly, and she hoped that she would never forget them, even if she was hit by a thousand Memory Charms.

Afterwards they had speculated about Rook's birth parents; something that was so overwhelming when she confronted it on her own, but with Fred… with Fred it was easier.

A lot of things were easy with Fred, and Rook had to admit she was surprised by it. They had clashed in the beginning, but now he knew her better than any other person at Hogwarts.

They sat together in the common room, whiling away the hours before George awoke and they had to leave.

"Are you sure you don't want to try to sleep a little before you go?" Rook pressed.

Fred scoffed. "Sleep is for squares, Rook."

"Hate to say it, but you are pretty square, in the shoulders at least…"

"It only looks that way because your mind can't fully comprehend me in all my infinite glory. If could see the real me, you'd go mad."

"What are you, Zeus?"

"Rook, please… I'm a tesseract."

Rook laughed.

"Is that pity laughter, or are you so knackered you'll laugh at anything I say?"

"Heheh… 'knackered'. You're so British."

"It's the latter, then."

"Come off it, mate!" Rook teased. "I'm right chuffed with you, you cheeky bloke!"

Fred winced. "That accent was just… rubbish."

Rook laughed harder. "Hahaha… 'rubbish'. It's called trash, ya goof!"

"Sure'nuff, yer so plumb tuckered, I reckon you'll laugh at jus' about any ol' thang," Fred retorted in what was obviously supposed to be a thick Texan accent.

"Ain'tchya just a clever lil' varmint?" They both dissolved into laughter, side-by-side on the settee. When they had finally recovered, Rook said, "I'm gonna miss you and George."

"We'll be back a'fore you can wrassle a hog into the pantalettes of a Southern Belle."

"You know that's not a real saying, right?"

"This ain't my first radio."

"Heavens to Betsy…"

Too soon, the vast majority of Gryffindor House was preparing for departure. Rook walked with Fred and George as far as the Entrance Hall and hugged them both goodbye before they left.

Rook decided to take a nap after she saw them off, so she went back to Gryffindor Tower and collapsed onto her four poster in her now desolate dormitory, falling asleep almost instantly.

As she slept, she dreamed, and in her dream she was back in Texas, on the bank of a bayou surrounded by untamed forest. Rain was falling, and Rook realized she was barefoot, letting water rush over her toes. She froze in place when she saw an egret watching her from the opposite bank. The egret seemed to spread its wings in slow motion and glided across the bayou toward her, but it was a man who appeared before Rook. He was a middle-aged man with olive skin, black hair falling past his collarbone, a prominent nose and dark eyebrows not unlike her own.

He spoke. Rook's mind felt like a dense haze, and his words came to her slowly. He was not speaking English, but Rook somehow knew exactly what he was saying.

"It is time for you to know the truth, Avalina."

Rook sat bolt upright in bed. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She grabbed her sketchbook, which she always kept on her bedside table as she slept, and hurriedly scrawled a description of the dream she had, then attempted a rough sketch of the man in the dream. When she was finished, she stared into his dark eyes, breathing quickly.

There wasn't a striking resemblance, but the eyebrows… Rook had never before seen anyone with eyebrows quite like hers: dark and naturally, distinctively angular.

It was only a dream, and it wasn't hard to guess why her mind would be inclined to conjure a man who looked like he could be her birth father, but why had he called her "Avalina"? She couldn't remember ever hearing that name.

Rook wrote it out in her sketchbook, like a signature. She didn't feel the slightest hint of familiarity. She put her sketchbook back in her book bag and got dressed. The dream was accurate about one thing, at least; it was time for her to know the truth.

After lunch, Rook made her way to the dungeons. She knew exactly what she was looking for. In fact, she almost had it committed to memory at this point, the irony of which was not lost on her. She was hoping to obtain ingredients for a Memory Potion. She had put off working on it for a number of reasons: her limited Potions knowledge, the timing requirements for this particular potion and, of course, various psychological blocks she was struggling to overcome. She knew now that she couldn't put it off any longer.

Outside the door to the Potions classroom, Rook wished she had the Marauder's Map or Fred and George as lookout. Though the Memory Potion was a relatively harmless concoction, and only required ingredients from the students' supply cupboard, Rook knew she was not supposed to be brewing anything without supervision. She had to be cautious. She hadn't seen Snape at the staff table, so he was likely in the classroom or in his office. If she walked into the classroom and he was there, she could just pretend to have a Potions-related question, and it wouldn't even be a complete lie. Rook took a deep breath and pushed the door open slowly.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but Rook did not see Snape anywhere. Once she was sure he was not in the room, Rook moved quietly to the supply cupboard and began helping herself, placing the various odds and ends on the nearest desk so she could keep track of what she still needed. She kept looking around as she rushed to find everything, but there was no sign of the Potions Master even as she withdrew the last ingredient. She was closing the cupboard doors when she heard him.

"Miss Rook, I believe you have explaining to do."

Rook felt a jolt of dread as she turned to face the source of the sinister voice.

As quiet as she had been, Snape must have known she was in the classroom, as he had pulled open the dungeon door silently and now loomed in the doorway like a vampire about to descend upon its ensnared victim.

And ensnared she was, helpless before his mesmerizing gait as he neared her. She was breathless, and she reflected on what a consummate wizard he was, to be able to spell her without a wand, to charm her without an utterance of any sort…

"Professor!" Rook blurted. "I was just—"

"I believe you are aware of how irregular it is for you to be here," Snape spoke, his eyes narrowing. "Perhaps you've come to leave another note?"

Rook tried to swallow, but her mouth suddenly felt very dry. She looked around the dungeon, half wondering if she could get to the door by running around the desks and throwing a chair down between her and Snape, like in the movies. She ruled it impractical. "I-I…" she stammered nervously, "I didn't come to leave a note, Professor, sir…"

Snape's eyes narrowed further, and Rook felt a chill pass through her. "Tell me why you're here," he demanded, his voice unnervingly quiet.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I know I'm not supposed to be here right now. And I know I'm not supposed to be mixing potions without supervision, but that's what I was planning to do. I understand if that means I'm getting expelled."

"Before you pack your bags, tell me what you intended to brew."

"That is…" Rook trailed off, avoiding Snape's penetrating stare. She sighed. "I was going to try to brew a Memory Potion."

Snape stepped closer to Rook, bearing down on her with a menacing sneer. "You expect me to believe that you risked your place at this school to illicitly brew a concoction your class is due to mix after Christmas break?"

Rook felt her face flush, and she stared at ground as she answered, "Well, I didn't know that, did I?" Her tone was more melancholy than sassy.

Snape stared down at Rook. Overall, he seemed as though he might have been a little less furious, but it was hard to tell. Then he pulled out his wand.

"Wait—!" Rook exclaimed, stumbling backward, but Snape had only summoned her carefully selected ingredients to the other end of the desk before taking a seat.

"Sit," he spoke, indicating the seat opposite him. Rook cautiously lowered herself onto the stool, staring at the jumble of items between them. Snape began to riffle through them.

"Flaxseed, Jobberknoll feathers, crushed quartz…" Snape murmured, his spindly fingers handling the ingredients delicately. "Certainly components of a memory potion, though who's to say which one? What text have you consulted?"

"These are the ingredients for the Memory Potion in Mixtures for Mental Maladies," Rook said, somewhat defensively.

"Ah, well, that explains it. Hervé Cusin's draughts often lack subtly, though they generally work well enough in a pinch. This potion, however…" Snape trailed off. "Where's the book?"

Rook stared. This was not unfolding the way she had expected it to. She wished that she could just ask if she was expelled, but Snape was looking back at her impatiently, so she said nothing as she retrieved the text from her bag. Snape quickly found the instructions for the vaguely-named "Memory Potion" and studied it briefly.

"A needlessly volatile method," Snape concluded, closing the book sharply. "One miscalculation could render you reliving memories in full color involuntarily. Another simple mistake could result in one reliving a single event for indeterminate length of time, possibly weeks, or even months.

"And who was to drink this Memory Potion? Were you planning on using it to pass your next aptitude tests, to advance further in your courses?"

"No, Professor. It was for me, but not for anything academic…"

Snape stared at Rook expectantly. To think that only hours after finally telling one of her best friends the story of her inexplicable memory loss and subsequent adoption, she'd be forced to divulge the same deeply personal details to Snape. She briefly considered lying, but she knew she couldn't come up with anything convincing off the top of her head. She sighed. "I don't know if you know this, Professor, but Professor McGonagall knows I'm adopted. The thing is, I don't know anything about my parents, or my life before I was about five or six years old. I can only assume one of my birth parents was a witch or wizard, and they might have been students here once. I came here to learn magic, and I take that very seriously, sir, but… I'm also here to find out more about my parents and why I was abandoned with no memories at all of my life before then." She looked him in the eye, fearful but inflexible. "I have to know."

As she spoke, Snape had ceased riffling through the potion ingredients. He was now examining her with an inscrutable expression.

"Are you going to expel me?" Rook asked, her voice wavering slightly.

"You'll be punished as I see fit, Miss Rook, as your infraction occurred in my classroom" he answered finally. "As much as I would delight in ousting an unprincipled pilferer like yourself, such a punishment may be disproportionate to the offence committed. For this, I think another course of action is necessary. Considering your infraction could have had a further devastating effect on your memory, I would think it best that you report to my office for detention tomorrow evening and every evening after, indefinitely. I must impress upon you the hazardous effects of a sub-par Memory Potion, so during that time you will be brewing a Memory Potion under my supervision, and you will be making a comprehensive record comparing it to the one you attempted to brew illicitly, do you understand?"

Rook was speechless. She felt as though it must be some kind of trick, maybe to get back at her for the love letter. Still, she nodded wordlessly, hoping against hope that he truly meant to help her recover her memory.

"The first thing you should know," Snape continued, "is that Jobberknoll feathers can certainly be effective in dire straits, but they are currently considered much too potent to use casually. There is a gentler component that would be far better suited to your particular needs." Snape summoned a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote something in the corner before handing it to Rook. "Retrieve these texts from the library when you leave here, and study them. When you return tomorrow evening, I expect you to know what core component we will be using."

"Yes, Professor."

"Now leave."

Rook went straight to the library. Her heart was still racing as she rushed past Madam Pince's desk toward the Potions section. In her hurry, she bumped into a dark-haired girl at the end of the aisle.

"Hey, watch where you're—Rook!"

"Madeline, what are you doing here?"

"Schoolwork, Rook," she said, holding up a massive book on runic interpretations. "You must be as thick as this book. Why else would I be here?"

"No, it's just—it's Christmas break, and I figured you'd gone home, like most of the school. Plus, you did tell me that you never study."

"That was last year. The prospect of O.W.L.s is really getting to me, believe it or not. You're lucky you're not taking them this year."

"Actually, I have to take my Potions O.W.L., or Professor Snape won't let me take Potions next year."

"Are you serious? At least tell me he'll let you continue with an E."

"McGonagall said that he wouldn't budge. It has to be this year, and it has to be Outstanding."

"Snape's a right old arsehole at best, but I have heard he's even worse with your lot."

"You have Potions with the Hufflepuffs, don't you?"

"Don't get me wrong, he's plenty mean to the Hufflepuffs. To be fair, though, a lot of them are rather vacuous. They're usually mucking up some step; it's honestly a nightmare. I wouldn't want to have to teach any of them Advanced Potions, that's for sure."

"I'm sorry, we were talking about how mean Professor Snape is just now, right?"

"Oh, please," Madeline spoke, rolling her eyes as she set the rune book back on the shelf. "Anyway, what are you doing here in the library during the holidays, hmm?"

"This is my second home," Rook said dejectedly. "I swear, I'm in here more often than Hermione." Rook consulted the parchment Snape had given her and began her search.

"Oh, I know that one. It's over here… You must be serious about getting that O. This is a pretty intense read." Madeline handed a relatively-small volume to Rook. "Don't let the size fool you. I tried this one when I was researching antidotes to uncommon poisons. I didn't even know thirteen-syllable words existed."

Rook laughed. "You mean like 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'? Oh, I guess that's fourteen-syllables."

"What is that, some obscure incantation?"

"Sure. I have to find this other book. If this one is as difficult as you say it is, I should get started as soon as possible."

"Well, I'm getting out of here. I'm starting to see runes everywhere I look, and your face is beginning to look like two inguzes and an ehwaz. I don't even want to know what that means." She took a step before hesitating. "Rook, maybe we should… I don't know, hang out a bit sometime."

"You mean while the school is virtually empty?"

Madeline looked contrite. "I shouldn't have asked. I don't know why you'd even want to, with the way I've acted."

Rook smiled. "It would be fun to hang out together."