Thursday 22nd September 1977

Fourth Floor Corridor, 16:00

Tonks shrugged her bag over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at herself. How could she have been so stupid as to forget her whole bag in the classroom? That was just daft. She had actually carried her Charms textbook the whole way down to the Entrance Hall before she noticed she was without a vital piece of equipment. Yes, she was hungry and tired (it had been a very magically draining day today - silent casting was hard work but all this did was lengthen the time she was going to be able to relax and eat. Not necessarily in that order.

"Stupid." She muttered, rummaging through her bag to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything else.

She was not going to return for a second time if she could help it. That was a lot of stairs to climb! Okay, it looked like everything was here. Merlin, she really needed to clear out her bag. No sane person should have that many crumpled up pieces of parchment, broken quills and empty sweet wrappers anywhere never mind in their bag. At least that explained the suspiciously sticky Transfiguration textbook last week. There were the remains of a sugar quill in there. Eurgh. Whatever. That could be dealt with later. When she had easy access to a fire to throw things into. Best way to get rid of rubbish.

Her stomach grumbled. Yes. Time for food. Like, twenty minutes ago. Stupid bag, wasting her time like this. Tonks slung her bag over one shoulder and made her way down the corridor.

Except, she didn't get far. And not because she fell or anything like that. No, someone blocked her way. Make that two someone's.

Her way was quite firmly blocked by two boys from her year - Young was in Hufflepuff and she thought the Slytherin was Carrow (nasty bit of work he was).

"Hi, Tonks," they said in unison baring their teeth in what she assumed was supposed to be a smile.

"Oh, hey."

Why were they talking to her? They never talked to her. Actually, Tonks got the distinct impression that they would really prefer that she didn't exist. She knew Young certainly thought so. He always made comments about keeping freaks out of bloodlines when she was around. Carrow, as she mentioned, followed Regulus around so he just disapproved of her on principal. Not that that was any hardship for her- she didn't exactly like either of them either.

Hence why them stopping her was weird. Unless they were going to try and taunt her or something but that usually happened when they had a crowd of admirers to appreciate that sort of thing.

"What are you up to?" Young asked.

"Oh, you know, grabbing some things I forgot."

Both boys nodded at her but still didn't get out of her way, nor did they say anything. This was just weird. And she didn't like how they were staring at her.

"Did you want something?" Tonks asked hesitantly.

Though, why they would want something from her was beyond her. But what other reason would they stop her if they weren't going to try and bully her?

"We were just wondering something." Carrow said slowly.

"Uh, sure."

"You can change any part of you, you want, right?"

"Yes..."

Normally Tonks would be happy to talk about her abilities but there was something about how they held themselves that made her feel like she had to be cautious. Yeah, cautious. That was a better word than nervous, right? Because cautious meant that you were just being careful, nervous meant that you were scared and she wasn't scared.

The two boys looked at each other a grinned.

"Even your chest?" Carrow leered, making a disgusting gesture that indicated big breasts.

Tonks didn't even know how to respond to that. How were you supposed to respond to that? What kind of person even asked that?

"Could you make your lips really big?" Young added, looking straight at hers.

Tonks shifted from foot to foot as they looked at her expectantly.

"I suppose..." she answered slowly, really not wanting to go any further into it. No thank you.

There was no way she wanted to encourage this type of behaviour at all. It was bad enough hearing people say she transformed parts of her body to make herself more desirable but no one, up to now, had actually asked her to change anything about herself for them. Not that she had gone on a lot of dates. Turns out, when your parents caused a scandal not many people were willing to ask you out. Figures.

Why were they still staring at her expectantly? She wasn't going to show them!

"I need to go," she excused herself but they didn't move. "Can I get past, please?" she asked in a louder tone.

They instinctively moved aside before they realised what they had done. Tonks didn't care, she just wanted to get away as quickly as possible. At least she wasn't trapped in the classroom anymore.

Unfortunately, that's where her luck ended.

"Does she not know how to do it, boys?" another voice asked, stepping out from around a corridor.

It was a seventh year. A Slytherin. Avery? He was always getting into trouble for bullying. His younger brother was always hanging around Regulus Black. Which was never a good sign in her opinion.

"She won't show us," Young complained.

"I-"

"Pity," Avery said over her.

She didn't like that look in her eyes. It made her skin crawl. Everything about this made her skin crawl.

Without a word, Tonks turned around and strode quickly down the corridor, bag banging against her side. She hoped it didn't look too much like she was fleeing but she didn't know what else to do. Thankfully, none of them followed her. She didn't know what she would do if they did. But they didn't so she didn't have to think about it.

Sunday 25th September 1977

Hogwarts Grounds, 16:00

Sirius absentmindedly leaned against the tree as Tonks flung herself down on the ground. The weather was still nice and warm, for Scotland anyway, so they had decided to spend some time outside.

He had sought his little cousin (not that he would ever say that to her face) out for some company, his friends having abandoned him. No, that was a lie. Remus and James had a Prefect's meeting and Peter had managed to get himself a detention - he had forgotten his Charms homework for the second time and Flitwick was taking no prisoners this year.

Since Sirius knew that he did not do well alone, he decided to go looking for Tonks. It was no hardship hanging out with her though they did have to be quite deliberate about it. Being in different years and in different Houses made things more difficult. Nonetheless, they managed it.

Like he said, Tonks was easy to spend time with. It was fun too. She was always up for a laugh. They had been discussing the prank she had pulled on her housemates - they had been being pretty obnoxious towards her - so she had decided to be obnoxious back. And what was more obnoxious than a dungbomb?

Sirius was impressed than she had managed to lob one into the Boys Dorm. She had good aim. Not that any of her Housemates appreciated that. It wasn't Tonks' fault that none of them thought to use a bubblehead charm. Not that that would have helped the boys that got hit with it - the stink would have just been held in the bubble. Sirius knew that from unfortunate experience.

That reminded him- he was going to have to pay a few Hufflepuff boys a visit and remind them of a few things. One, she was his cousin and two, just because she was a Metamorphmagus did not give them the right to ask her to shift into anything they wanted. That was just tacky and uncouth. Honestly. And Sirius knew it made Tonks feel uncomfortable. She hadn't said anything to him about it but he had overheard someone ask her to shift into something and seen her look decidedly uncomfortable about the request. That was enough for him.

"Why don't we perform the minor Sabbats together?" Tonks asked suddenly.

Sirius tilted his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

Where had that come from?

"I mean, we're family, aren't we? And that means we should be doing them together. Doesn't it?"

She looked so unsure about this and Sirius didn't really understand why. Why was she so concerned about the minor Sabbats?

"I didn't realise that you celebrated them."

"What gave you that idea?"

Sirius shrugged. "I don't know. I always got the impression that Andromeda ignored them."

"She keeps the traditions."

"I thought she threw away all tradition."

Tonks gave him a rather vicious glare. "Just because she stopped believing what the Black family did and didn't want to be basically sold into some arranged marriage does not mean she was giving up on every tradition. Not all of them are stupid and backwards!"

"Shh!" Her voice was getting louder and louder as she spoke, they didn't need attention drawn to them.

"I'll speak as loud as I want!"

But she did lower her voice as she continued, "We celebrate all the holidays at home."

"I didn't know."

He really didn't. Sirius honestly thought that Andromeda had left that all behind her when she married Ted. After all, that's what his parents and aunts and uncles always said. Ah. And there was his problem.

"I should have known they were lying," Sirius muttered. "My parents and other family members," he explained, seeing her confused look. "They always said that Andromeda renounced everything."

Tonks snorted. "Definitely not."

"Sorry." He repeated. "I really should have known better."

"You really should."

And now he felt bad. He really shouldn't have made assumptions like that. Sirius knew he hated people assuming things about him, it must be just as bad or worse for the Tonks', what with all the rumours and gossip about them.

The two of them stood in awkward silence - Tonks not looking at him. He had to fix this. He had to make this right.

"Look, it's too late to celebrate Mabon together now, obviously, but we can celebrate all the others together."

"Really?"

"Of course. Like you said, we're family. We should have been doing it together in the first place."

How could he have been so stupid? Well, he wasn't going to be any more. No way. Tonks was a member of his family that je actually liked.

Sure, he wouldn't be doing the Minor Sabbats with James anymore but he would understand. Family was important, after all.

"Oof!" was the sound of all the air leaving his body as Tonks threw herself at him in some semblance of a hug.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Wednesday 27th September 1977

Quidditch Pitch, 19:00

"Okay, team," James said as he walked up and down the changing room. "This is it, our last practice before our first match of the season. Ravenclaw. We need to focus on disorientating them. Distraction is key here. You distract them, they lose track of their plays. That hasn't changed from last year."

"McKinnon and I have this, Prongs," Sirius informed him, waving his Beater's bat in the air.

Bludgers were pretty good distractions, after all.

"We need more than that," James told him. "We need us Chasers swooping in and out in large motions but we also need to remember our plays so we can score."

"What if we swoop in a pattern?" Dorcas suggested. "That way we know where each of us are."

James shook his head. "Can't do that with the Ravenclaws. They'll figure us out in minutes and that would be a disaster."

Sirius had to hide a smile at that. It wouldn't exactly be a disaster but it would definitely give the Ravenclaw team a better chance of scoring. Which, to be fair, probably was a disaster in James' eyes.

Don't get him wrong, Sirius understood where James was coming from. The Ravenclaw Chasers were good, really good. Sure, the Gryffindor Chasers matched them, they were even better in Sirius' opinion but, unfortunately, Gryffindor had a brand-new Keeper this year. Shacklebolt. He was good, or else James wouldn't have chosen him, but he was green. Way too green for the Ravenclaw team in Sirius' opinion. They were going to slaughter him if they had the chance.

But they weren't going to get a chance because Gryffindor was by far the more awesome team and they were going to win!

Everyone suddenly groaned and Sirius shook himself out of his thoughts. And then he groaned too. James had just taken out at least five different diagrams. He tapped one and it enlarged.

"This manoeuvre is our best bet," James began, directing his wand at the parchment and his little stick figures with accurate hairstyles started to move. "But only if the Chasers move like so-"

"Somebody kill me now," Cannons muttered.

The only one who looked eager was Shacklebolt but that was to be expected when he was so eager to be on the team that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet.

The rest of them? Not so much.

Saturday 1st October 1977

Second Floor Corridor, 11:30

Severus saw Lily in the corridor and hurried towards her. He almost came to a skidding stop when he noticed who she was talking to. Potter. Yes, for the past year there had been no targeted taunting or pranks from him and his little friends but that didn't mean that they were anything more than civilised to each other. Actually, as Severus thought about it, he didn't think that they had interacted at all with each other over the past year. Weird.

Even so, he gave the conversing pair a hesitant look, maybe it would be better if he waited until they were done. Yes. That would be best. No point in tempting fate and all that.

"Hey, Severus!"

And, of course, Lily just had to spot him, didn't she? It was just his luck. He couldn't very well ignore her so he approached them.

"Thanks for explaining that," Potter said to her. "It makes a load more sense now."

"Happy to help," Lily replied. "Tell me if you have any more trouble."

Potter gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Oh, I'm sure I will."

"It's quite advanced, remember. You aren't going to get it right by luck."

"I know, I know."

Lily rolled her eyes.

"Hi, Severus," she greeted with a smile. "I was just helping James out here."

James? When had Potter become James?

"Snape," Potter greeted with a polite nod.

"Potter."

"How have you been? Haven't seen you around much these days."

Severus startled at that. Potter had actually noticed that he hadn't seen him? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

"I've been spending a lot of time in the Potions Labs whenever I have free time."

"Try all of it," Lily said with a snort. "It's all I can do to get him into sunlight."

Potter gave him a once over. "I think you need to do a better job of that. He's so pale he could put vampires to shame."

"I get outside," Severus found ginseng complaining instead of bristling at the perceived insult.

"Yes, when you want to gather ingredients, Sev." Lily patted him on the arm. She looked up at Potter. "Severus has permission to gather ingredients from the Forbidden Forest. He's going to be trying to do his Potions Mastery when he leaves."

"Lily-"

She didn't need to tell Potter that! Surprisingly, Potter whistled admiringly.

"That's really tough, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said shortly, not sure with this was going.

"Cool. Well, good luck. Hope you manage it."

"He will," Lily said confidently.

"Lily."

"Well, I'll let you continue with your attempts to get him out of the Labs, Evans," Potter said in farewell, giving them an amused look. "Nice to talk with you, Snape."

"Potter." Severus gave a curt nod, trying not give away any of his swirling emotions.

Potter being polite to him wasn't unusual for the past year or so but being... nice? For lack of a better word. Was he dreaming? No, even his dreams wouldn't involve that.

Lily wasn't looking at him, she was watching Potter leave with a thoughtful look on her face.

"You wanted to go outside?" Severus asked.

"What? Oh, yes." She looked at him and smiled. "Come on, while the weather is still nice."

Severus scrunched up his nose at the thought.

"Maybe it will rain," he said hopefully.

"Severus!"

Monday 3rd October 1977

Auror Training Academy, 15:00

'CRASH'

Kingsley groaned as he flew into a wall. Thankfully, it was a corkboard made up to look like a real one but when you went flying through the air at an incredibly speed even cork hurt. A lot.

"Get yourself up Shacklebolt and keep running!" one of the Instructors barked at him.

Kingsley didn't know his name, didn't know any of their names. Which was okay as long as he responded to orders with a quick "Yes, sir!"

He wasn't even duelling and he was already getting flung to the ground. Apparently, they wouldn't be duelling for a while. No, these first few months were solely dedicated to sharpening and developing skills. Today's skill was dodging. Something he wasn't very good at. As proved by the fact that he kept on getting blasted into things. Notably, the wall.

He ran and ran, dodging the burst of light as best he could and using his arm to shield his face. Not all the blasts were directed at him, some were directed at the ground to make the gravel and sand spray up- blurring his vision.

He just had to get to the other side of the room. The room being the same size as his old primary school's assembly hall so it wasn't small. Not that high either but when there was stuff getting thrown at you, you may as well be trying to cross a small country.

Dramatic? Yes. But only because that gravel stung.

"Ow!" he yelped as he got sprayed with more of it.

"Toughen up, Shacklebolt! Curses hurt a hell of a lot more!"

He knew that, of course he knew that. It still didn't help with the fact that gravel hurt. No. That didn't matter. He didn't want to be some pathetic wuss, as Moody said. He wanted to be good at this. Kingsley steeled himself and took a deep breath.

One long straight run with no stopping. That was going to be the best way to deal with this. No. Not straight. That was the first thing Moody had drummed into them. Running straight meant that you were an easy target. Zigzag. That's how he was going to get across the room. As quickly as he possibly could. He would just have to move his legs faster. And cover his face. Minimal hits. Yes. That's how he was going to do it.

Kingsley didn't think any more about it as he ran. He ran and ran and ran. Arms were covering his face and he could feel the sting of the gravel but that was it. The blasts weren't hitting him! There were a few close shaves but he managed to dodge them. Zigzag, zigzag, zigzag. He just had to keep on going.

A sharp beep sounded and Kingsley opened his eyes and lowered him arms. Yes! He was here! He had made it the whole way across the room.

"Nice going, Shacklebolt. You pulled through after a shaky start," Barton praised. "Think faster next time. Now, get out of the way."

"Savage! You're up!" Moody called.

Thursday 6th October 1977

Potions Lab, 11:00

Sirius groaned as they emerged from the Lab, his head pounding from their finished lesson. Was it really a lesson if he didn't learn anything? Not because he didn't know it but because it had made him feel completely lost. He had absolutely no idea what Slughorn had been talking about. He wasn't even sure Slughorn had been speaking in English. Sure, the words by themselves were identifiably English but put them all together and you lost him. Dramatically so.

"Tough lesson?" Remus asked, meeting them at the entrance to the Dungeons.

"You don't know how lucky you are not to do Potions anymore," Sirius grumbled.

Yes, he knew it was because some of the ingredients they had to use were definitely not advised for a werewolf to inhale or ingest but still. All that mattered at the minute was the fact that Remus had not had to sit though whatever that lesson had been about.

"It was hard," James admitted and he was good at Potions. "But it sort of made sense."

"Are you sure you were in the same class as me?"

There was no way that any of those instructions had made sense. They really hadn't. Not if Sirius' resulting potion was anything to go by. Could you even call it a potion if it had the consistency of sludge? Slughorn had actually shuddered when he saw it. Shuddered.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad."

"Did you even see my potion? Mine wasn't even liquid at the end of it. I had to scrape it into my vial!"

James gaped at him. "How did you screw up that bad?"

"He didn't add enough Lethe water," Snape commented as he strode past with Evans.

What was he talking to them for? This wasn't any of his business. And how did he even know that? Snape sat way near the front with Evans, he wouldn't have been able to see his potion unless he could see out the back of his head. Which he wouldn't put it past Snape.

"I added the Lethe water!" Sirius told him with a frown.

"But not enough," Snape said surprisingly patiently. "You can't even have a drop left or there won't be enough liquid for it to react with the beetles and newt tails."

Huh. Sirius hadn't known that. But he thought he had been careful with his measuring. Then again, he did tend to err on the side of caution when he measured out ingredient. Having slightly too little of an ingredient made for less volatile reactions than having slightly too much. He spoke from experience there, trust him. It was also a piece of advice that Mr Potter gave him.

"I didn't know that," he said when he realised everyone was looking at him expectantly.

Snape snorted. "Obviously not."

Seriously, was his default state sarcasm or something?

"You won't do it next time, huh?" James said, pointedly nudging him with an elbow.

"I suppose not," Sirius said begrudgingly.

"Ouch! Lily!"

It looked like Snape also got an elbow to the side.

"It's better than adding too much," Evans told him. "That causes an explosion."

Huh. Looked like his little method worked. Well, not completely because he didn't breed the potion correctly but he avoided an explosion. That was always good.

Saturday 8th October 1977

Hogwarts Grounds, 14:30

"They asked you what?" Chryssie spluttered in disbelief, coming to a stop.

They had been walking along the shores of the Lake. It was a nice day, even if the breeze coming off it was a little chilly.

"They really did." Tonks confirmed, pulling her cloak around her.

If you were moving you couldn't feel the cold but if they were stopping, she would definitely need a warming charm.

"I can't believe it. There's no way someone would ever even think to ask something like that."

"Well, you should because they did. Gestures and all."

Tonks finally told Chryssie what those boys - Young and Carrow - had asked of her last week.

"Ew. That's gross."

"You're telling me! They actually said it to me!"

"Why?"

Tonks shrugged. "Hell, if I know. I wasn't hanging around to ask them."

"Did they give you any trouble?" Chryssie asked curiously. "They didn't do anything to you, did they?"

Tonks shuddered at what three boys could do to her if they put their minds to it.

"No, thank Merlin, God and whoever else."

Chryssie giggled. "Well, I'm glad you're okay. Who even asks that sort of thing?"

"Creeps. Which describes those three perfectly, don't you think?"

"Definitely Carrow," Chryssie agreed. "He always stares at girls weirdly. It gives me shivers when I see him do that and it isn't even at me!"

"It's because he knows that's the closest he'll ever get to a girl. I don't think anyone has ever gone out with him."

"No one is stupid enough to do that."

"The only way he's going to get anywhere with a girl is by contract. A marriage one," Tonks amended at Chryssie's confused look.

She shook her head. "I still can't believe you do that here."

"Only the pureblood families really. And even then, it's the more higher up ones. Mostly. Social climbers do it too."

And it was kind of expected for them. They weren't the type of families to just throw away centuries of tradition, after all.

"So weird."

Tonks shrugged. It wasn't like she could really talk. After all, she was the product of someone escaping a marriage contract and running off with a muggleborn, of all people. She wasn't exactly keeping in with the aforementioned centuries of tradition.

"Anyway," Chryssie said, shaking her head. "How did we even get onto this?"

"We were talking about how Carrow will never get a girlfriend."

"Well, maybe he wants a boyfriend?"

They both giggled at that. Carrow was definitely the type of person who took offense of a member of the same sex even looked at him funny. Which was odd because the Wizarding World in general didn't care about that sort of thing - unlike the muggle one from what Tonks had heard. Sure, certain families needed their heirs to marry to the opposite sex for reproductive purposes but the genders of flings or mistresses (what was the male version of that?) really didn't matter.

"Even boys have standards and I doubt they would be anywhere near Carrow!"