Hi! I was so excited to see the positive feedback I got when I updated so I promise to try and be much better about it.

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Love, Essie

Also, be sure to check out the AN at the bottom!

Please have mercy on me
Take it easy on my heart
Even though you don't mean to hurt me
You keep tearing me apart
Would you please have mercy on me
I'm a puppet on your strings
And even though you got good intentions
I need you to set me free
Would you please have mercy

~Mercy, Shawn Mendes

James woke up one morning, like any other school day, and he and the rest of the guys dragged themselves down to breakfast. Suddenly, Alison Hayden appeared. It had taken Sirius a week to find a new girl after Valentine's Day and as March approached, she was beginning to become more and more obnoxious. Dany and Sirius had mended things up and seemed even closer (if that was really possible without dating each other) after the incident with the love potion and Brady and Sirius were at each other's throats more and more. James thought that this was going to end incredibly poorly, but didn't say anything on the subject to anyone except Remus, who agreed wholeheartedly.

The girls didn't even bother to look up as Alison walked over and sat down between Dany and Sirius, in debatably the world's smallest space. James thought it was rather poetic. Maybe they could squeeze Brady in there too. Dany glanced up, as her personal space was severely invaded. Alison, who went by Ali, looked over at her disdainfully.

"Masters."

"Hayden."

"So, Dany. Have you done the potions essay?" Lily abruptly said. Dany broke her glare at Ali and started talking to Lily. Awkward. James was so bloody tired he wanted to fall over, and judging by the look on Sirius, Frank, and Peter's faces, they felt the same way. Once Remus had gone to bed, they had all slipped out and worked on the transformation almost all night. They were doing well, they were more than halfway there and no one had yet to die. That was considered a fantastic success in terms of illegally becoming animagi. Remus had no idea, which was how they all wanted it, until it was too late for him to try and stop them. Frank thought it would be better as a surprise, anyways. James watched Alice talking to Frank, who looked like he was half-asleep. Poor boy. Despite his obvious sleep-deprivation, Frank was answering her questions and smiling. Love was a weird thing. Suddenly, Toby walked over.

"Black, Potter. We have practice tonight at six. Sorry for the last minute notice." He said and James nodded. Toby got no response from Sirius, who was rather occupied with putting his tongue in his girlfriend's mouth.

"Sure thing, Toby." James said and Toby glanced at Sirius again. "I'll tell him. Don't subject yourself for longer than needed." He added on and Toby looked at him gratefully.

"Thanks. Bloody disgusting." He muttered and everyone made a sound of agreement. Toby walked away with a parting word to his chaser. Damn, he had a lot of work tonight.

"So Remus…you wouldn't mind helping me out with my Potions essay, would you?" He asked casually and Remus rolled his eyes.

"Sure…you owe me though." He said and James nodded.

"I really do. You have my undying gratitude." He said and Remus shook his head faintly.

"Oh, I better. James Potter if I had a sickle for every time…" He trailed off and James grinned.

"Yeah, yeah. We know. You'd be richer than Dany if you had a sickle for every time you helped me with my homework." He said and Dany looked up.

"Oi! Why am I always the standard for wealth? Black here isn't from a family of squalor and last time I checked, you don't live in a hovel either, James." She said and James waved a hand dismissively.

"Please, be that as it may, your family still has more money than God. And more money than both of our," He gestured to himself and Sirius, "families combined." He said and she shrugged.

"It's my parents money, not mine." She said through a mouthful of cereal. James rolled his eyes and let the topic drop.

"We need to get to class." Lily said everyone started to gather his or her things. "Remus, break them up." She said and gestured to Sirius and Ali. Remus sighed and threw a piece of toast at Sirius.

"Sirius. Sirius, come on. We have class. Remove your tongue from her mouth, please." He said, bored. Sirius stopped snogging his girlfriend and looked up.

"Sure thing. Let's go." He said and got up to get his bag like he hadn't just been snogging his girlfriend. So all in all, a pretty normal day so far. "What do we have? Care of Magical Creatures?" He asked and the group nodded in general agreement. They walked down and out of the castle. Unfortunately Ali was in the class with them, so they all were subjected to her blabbering. She was pretty typical of Sirius' girlfriends. She was short, a fake blonde, cute, shallow, peppy, and wore way too much makeup. They all reached the field that the class was held in and looked around. No Professor. Weird. They all stood around for a while and finally someone enacted the fifteen-minute rule—the renowned "if he isn't here within the next fifteen minutes, we all leave" rule. It was some Slytherin bloke. Unfortunately, five minutes later, their professor appeared to the sounds of quiet sighs of disappointment.

"Hello, hello everyone! Now, today is a very exciting class! Normally, I wouldn't even consider doing this with Fourth Years, but this is such a rare opportunity that I'm showing all of my classes. Of course the little kids have to stay very far away, but even they get to see. Wouldn't you agree that this is exciting?" He said and Lily raised her hand.

"Um, Professor? You haven't told us what it is that we're doing today." James was relieved someone had bothered to ask.

"Thank you, Lily. I almost forgot I got so excited there for a minute. Believe it or not, some wizards are passing through as they're moving two dragons from Romania to the States. They are being housed here and have agreed to let the students see the dragons and speak about them." He said and immediately people started talking. Dragons. Actual dragons.

"Excited?" James whispered and Dany nodded. She had always been fascinated for some reason. Rhaegar had always called it a dumb interest.

"So excited. They're so intelligent. They're not brutes; they can talk to you sort of. They really just hear your thoughts." She said and James raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yup. I have a few relatives that used to work with dragons. That's what their journals all say, at least." She said with a shrug as they all followed their professor.

"What are you going to do if the dragon talks to you?" He teased and she rolled her eyes.

"Shut up, asshole. Besides, they only speak to people that they've known for years and trust." James' hope of seeing something really cool was crushed.

"How do they recognize people? We all kind of look the same." He asked and she thought for a second. He was really testing her memory, apparently.

"I think by smell. I'm not positive, but that's my best guess…so I think we all need to appreciate that Alison looks like she's going to pass out. She's actually going to be hiding behind Sirius the entire time, isn't she?" Sure enough, she was discreetly hiding behind her boyfriend. Impressive. "This is why there's gender inequality in the world. It's girls like her." She sniffed and suddenly, they entered another clearing in the woods. There were five men, three women, and two actual dragons.

"Don't worry, everyone. They're behind an invisible barrier that Professor Dumbledore placed there himself. You're in no danger." One of the women said and everyone walked closer. "Yes, yes it's okay." She said and they eventually all crowded around the eight people and the dragons.

"Hello everyone. I'm Jill Davidson and I work in Romania with dragons. I'm originally from Britain but moved out there to follow my love for the great beasts. Everyone I'm travelling with is quite shy so I do believe I'll be doing all of the talking." She said. "Now, this is Ragnis," She gestured to the smaller purple dragon, "he's about fifty, just about sixteen or seventeen, in human years. And this is Katla. She's quite a bit older. She'd be up in her eighties if she were human. She's about, believe it or not, two thousand years old." She said and people immediately started whispering, looking at the much larger black dragon. That was really fucking old. "She's rather nice though. Ragnis is a bit more…well he's fierier. Please ignore the pun." She said and people laughed. "So, I suppose I'll start by answering questions?"

"How do you know she's two thousand years old?" Someone asked from the back of the class. James thought that was a very good question.

"Well, first of all, she told us. Secondly, there're some accounts, from back when Muggles believed in magic and such, of a black dragon flying through the skies and striking fear into people."

"They can talk?"

"They can communicate in certain ways. Any form of direct communication is mental and exceptionally rare. They can work their way into your mind and speak to you, but usually never more than a sentence or two. They both know English, if you're curious. They talk to each other more than anything." She said with a smile. "Ourselves, we've only spoken to Ragnis a few times each and Katla hasn't spoken to a handler for almost three hundred years." She suddenly looked back at the dragons, a strange look on her face. She looked over at her companions.

"Is everything alright, Jill?" One of them asked and she shook her head.

"She just spoke."

"What?"

"Katla. She just spoke." She said and they all looked at the dragon. "She wants to speak to one of the students." She said and they all exchanged looks. Dany looked like someone had hit her in the face she was so surprised.

"Who does she want to talk to?"

"She says that there's someone here with the old magic in their veins, she says she can smell the old blood." She said and the handlers all started muttering. That could be any Pureblood here. "How old are you all? Fourth Years? Danilynn Masters wouldn't happen to be in this class, would she?" She asked and Dany looked like she was so confused she was about ready to pass out. She raised her hand.

Dragon Emilia had been a relative, an indirect one, but still she bore the surname. Dany had heard Katla's voice in her head as soon as she had walked into the clearing. Hello, little one. It became quickly apparent that she was the only one hearing this. I have waited for three hundred years to feel the presence of your blood again. Then apparently Katla had become impatient and had gone to her handler to call her up. Now, she was looking at the giant dragon up-close and personal.

"Um, hello." She said and the dragon seemed impassive.

You are the blood of Emilia. I can smell her on you. You are blood of Katherine. You carry the old ways in your blood, little one. Dany nodded.

"Yeah, I've heard…how do you know the names of my relatives?" She asked and everyone started whispering even louder. The handlers asked for quiet.

I knew them once, a long time ago. I am very old and I remember your family from before civilization put out the fire in your blood, they were ruthless and bloody. You remind me of her, little one. You remind me of Katherine. You carry Emilia's blood but she did not have this soft of a mind. Katherine was kind. She was kind and she was deadly, but she did not have the fire of Emilia. She had the voice of a young woman, despite supposedly being the equivalent age of eighty-five or so.

"Is that a compliment?" She asked. Katla moved her big head back and forth.

There is no compliment. Dragons must have fire in their blood to survive. Yes, you remind me of Katherine Masters. She was so kind, so deadly. She loved her father. She did horrible things for her family…yes, some horrible things. She disobeyed though. No one ever talks about the man she loved. Dany was surprised.

"She disobeyed?" She asked and people started murmuring.

She did. She loved her father more than anyone…until him. She defied her beloved father for the man she gave her heart to. Your mind is so like Katherine…you would disobey for a man, wouldn't you, little one? I believe so; it's all right here. You could put aside that soft and gentle heart to protect those you love. Dany had no idea how to answer that. You can and you will—one day.

"Is there a reason you wanted to speak to me?" She asked cautiously.

I wished to speak once more to the blood of Emilia. She is the only human I have ever met that had enough fire in her to be a dragon. Tell me, do you have siblings?

"I have a brother." She said.

Does he have the fire? Dany hesitated and then shook her head. Rhaegar had a lot of things (like a huge ego for one), but that wasn't one of them. I thought not. Men almost never do. It has been a pleasure, little one. Thank you for letting me feel Emilia's presence once more.

"Thank you for letting me speak to you." She said and before Dany could say anything else, Katla touched her snout to the ground. It looked like a bow. "I think it's over." Dany said to Jill and she nodded.

"What did she say?"

"She…she said that I reminded her of someone; one of my ancestors." She said and Jill slowly guided her back to the group of her peers. All of her friends immediately rushed over to her.

"Dan. What the hell?" Lily asked and hugged her.

"Lily. Lily, I just stood there. I was in no actual danger." She said into her friend's hair. She was being clung onto by Lily and was getting a face full of her red hair. "I can't breathe through your hair." She sputtered and Lily let go.

"Well congratulations on having the weirdest life ever." James commented. "What did she want?"

"She said that I smelled like the old blood." Dany said and thought that this was the weirdest Wednesday that she had ever experienced. "She said that she knew my family a long time ago, when it was 'bloody'…this whole day has been fucking bizarre. She said that I reminded her of someone." She said.

"Who did you remind her of?" James asked.

"She said I reminded her of Katherine." She said and Sirius looked up from where Ali was hiding behind him. They all started to walk back up to the castle.

"Katherine as in Ethan's daughter Katherine?" Sirius asked. Dany nodded.

"Who is she?" Lily asked and everyone except Sirius and James shrugged.

"Go ahead, James." Dany said and he looked thrilled he got to tell the story.

"When Ethan built the Ministry, his wife was already dead and he had only a son and daughter left. Nathaniel was the son; he's Daniel, Dany, and Rhaegar's direct ancestor. The daughter was named Katherine. Ethan thought that having only men in control was a bad idea; he thought that it would lead to too many conflicts, but his wife was dead so he instated his daughter into the Ministry until Nathaniel took over. She was his closest confidant and most trusted advisor. When Nathaniel married and became Minister, she stepped down from her position because she was tired of the politics and so the patrilineal line of the family took over completely." James said. Lily raised an eyebrow.

"Do we know anything about her as a person?" Lily asked, intrigued.

"There are a few accounts of Katherine, actually. She never married and she died at sixty." Dany said and Sirius laughed a little as they walked back into the common room. Apparently Ali was coming with them. They all sat down on the floor by the fire.

"Not to interrupt, but I think Lily was asking about her as a human being and not a bunch of facts, Dan." Sirius said and she shrugged.

"Sorry. Well do you want to give the history lesson then?" She asked and he looked like he hadn't seen that coming.

"Hey, you really think that I didn't have your family line force fed to me as a kid? Please, you have some of the purest blood on this continent. You heard the dragon; you still have so much of the old blood she could smell it."

"It's like having body odor." She said and he laughed.

"What's the old blood?" Marlene asked, sitting down with Alice, Remus, and Frank. Dany didn't bother to respond, she never really liked throwing her lineage in people's faces. It kind of made her uncomfortable.

"Before there were wands and such—that's to say that before modern magic, there was a different kind. It's dead these days and not even the very old even have an idea as to how to perform it. It's elemental magic and it lived in the blood. It's not like our idea of magic is; it's where the idea of blood status came from. It used to be that the more of the blood that a witch or wizard had, the stronger the magic." James said and Dany nodded.

"A lot of Purebloods still hold onto that and insist that they're better than Muggleborns because they still have traces of the old blood. It's almost all gone now because wizards would have children with Muggles and it was so long ago that people forgot and he supposed 'Purebloods' have mostly Muggle blood." Dany said.

"Except for your family." Sirius added on and Dany glanced at him as if to say 'shut up. I don't like talking about it'. He rolled his eyes, but didn't continue.

"What does he mean, Dan?" Remus asked and Dany shook her head.

"It doesn't matter. No one even knows how to use the old blood anymore. All it's good for is waving it in other people's faces, which I personally find classless." She said with a shrug and James rolled his eyes.

"Dany's family never married outside of the magical community because of the position they held so the blood was really never diluted. I mean you can't be bringing Muggles into the mix when you're the head of the Wizarding Community; you need someone who grew up in it and knows the way things work. There's some Muggle in there through a couple of marriages to some witches that had a Muggleborn grandparent, but for the most part the family is still pureblooded. Truly, Pureblooded and not what we conceive as Pureblood." Sirius said. Dany nodded.

"Well he's not lying." She said with a shrug and James started laughing.

"Aw, it's too bad that you lot are such disgraces to the rest of the Pureblood families; Walburga probably would have been trying to marry you into her family." James said and Sirius and Dany both coughed.

"Excuse me?" Lily said and they both glared at him.

"Like it's not true? You both know just as well as I do that if the Masters family was still 'respectable' to your family's lot, that's exactly what would happen. You're the exact same age and he's heir to one of the oldest families left; that never happens. If it wasn't for this war and for the clash over blood supremacy, you two probably would be engaged already, hell you'd probably be getting married the second you both turned seventeen. Babies would be on the way by eighteen." James said with a shrug. Dany rolled her eyes and Sirius looked mortified by the thought of children. Like this was the first time James had said this to her.

"Please James, I really don't think that ever would have happened, war or not." Sirius said and Dany agreed with that.

"Yeah, they haven't been in our fan club in a long time. What do they always call us? 'White-haired monstrosities'?" She said and Sirius nodded in confirmation.

"Yup. My mother also thinks that you all have two brain cells combined." He threw in and she laughed.

"Well, that's a pity. But anyways, that's who Katherine Masters is." She said, trying to change the topic back.

"So we know nothing about her personally?" Alice asked, looking disappointed. Dany rolled her eyes.

"Not really, at least I don't. Katla, the dragon, she said something though. Something that I've never heard before…she said that she disobeyed her family." She said and Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"What? Didn't she love her father pretty blindly? She was Ethan's most valuable asset because she was so loyal." He said and she shrugged.

"That's what I thought. Look, Katla said that she disobeyed her father and no one ever talks about it. She said that no one ever talks about the man she loved. She said that she loved her father more than anything until she gave her heart to a man. I've never heard anything about this." She said and Lily's eyes lit up.

"Dan, what if it's a love story? What if it was forbidden love?" She asked breathlessly. Dany shrugged.

"Okay, first of all, this isn't Romeo and Juliet and second, we'll never know if no one ever talked about it. Odds are, no one even remembers who the guy was." She said. "If they didn't get married, he probably never made it into the books…" She trailed off. Then she realized she was wrong. He would have made it into at least one. "Except for Katherine's diary. If she had loved him, she would have written about him." She said and all of the girls perked up. Even Ali looked interested, despite hating Dany herself.

"How do you know that?" James asked.

"Girls write about the boys they love. Trust me, I think that it's instinctual or something." She said. "If he's going to be anywhere, it'll be there." She added on.

"Dan, you should write your dad, ask him to send it to you." Marlene said and Dany shook her head.

"There's no point; no way he'd send something like that in the post. It's a family heirloom." She said and they all looked disappointed. Well, the girls did. The guys looked rather relieved that they didn't have to listen to this any longer.

"That's too bad. That would have been interesting; besides, if anyone's family was going to have some great love story, it would be yours." Lily said and Dany shrugged. "Well I think we can pick this up later. We need to go do homework; come on girls." She said briskly and they all groaned.

"Lily…"

"Why do you hate us?"

"I thought you were my friend…"

"I don't hate you, but you're going to hate your grade if you don't do your work." She said briskly and kicked Dany in the leg gently. Homework my ass, she thought; Lily wanted to have a girls only talk. Dany waved a hand and stood up.

"Alright…let's go ladies." She said and they all left, leaving Remus, James, Sirius, and Ali behind them in the common room.

The moment Dany had said that Katherine Masters had disobeyed her father and brother for a man, Lily not only felt her heart melt, but her stomach twist. The young woman who was apparently so much like her friend had gone against her father for love. It would be just like Dany to do that shit and in a time like this, that could be very, very bad. Except she didn't really love Brady like she said she did. She liked him, but she'd never consider going against her brother, let alone her father, who was her best friend and closest confidant, for him. Lily had never even heard her mention that she had gone against her father except over things she saw as concerns to her friends' safety.

She had defied her mother and had written to Sirius when Daniel had been in the hospital, but she couldn't think of a time when she had ignored her father. Lily didn't think that it would be Brady Harris to get her to throw away her respect for her father's wishes. Sure, he was nice and an okay boyfriend, but he would never really understand her on anything more than a skin-deep level.

They all reached their room and Lily immediately turned to Dany. She looked intrigued by what she had to say.

"Yes, Lily?"

"Okay, so can we talk about this great love story without the guys there for a minute? You said that you reminded Katla of Katherine?" Dany nodded. "And Katherine disobeyed for father for a man?" She nodded again. "But we don't know who he is, right?" Dany nodded.

"Yeah, we don't know anything about him except that he probably wasn't a shining example of respectable for some reason." She said with a shrug.

"Except we do. Because you're just like Katherine. If you're like her, you probably have similar tastes in men."

"You think she did all of this for some guy like Brady? No offense to him." Marlene asked skeptically. Dany waved a hand.

"No, well maybe, but what I meant was a similar taste in who you'd go against your father and brother for. Not who your boyfriend is. Who would you defy Daniel for?" She said and Dany nodded.

"It's not a bad theory. And the list is pretty short, especially if we're just talking about guys." She said and they all looked at her. They all knew who was on the list and it was two people long.

"James and Sirius." Alice said and she nodded.

"Is it horrible that Brady isn't on that list?" She asked quietly. Yes.

"No…you've just known James and Sirius for longer." Lily said, not sharing her thought about just how unpromising that was for her relationship. "It's still kind of a new relationship is all." She added on supportively and Dany nodded.

"I think I'm going to go down to the Kitchens…do you guys want something?" She asked and they all declined and she walked out of the room. They all exchanged looks.

"Can I put a theory out there?" Alice asked and they all nodded. "What if she's still in love with Sirius?" She asked and Lily shrugged.

"Of course she is. She can deny it as much as she wants but if someone told her that she had to kill one of them, Brady wouldn't be walking out alive, I can tell you that much." Lily said and they all looked at her. "What? Can any of you contradict that?" She asked and no one said anything. "That's what I thought." She said and glanced at the door that Dany had just walked out of. "I'm going to go talk to Potter about this." She said decisively and left. She walked out into the common room and knocked on the boys' door. Remus opened the door.

"Lily?"

"Who's in there?"

"Not Sirius, that's who." He said blandly and she nodded with a grin.

"Ah, you know me so well." She said and he let her in. James and Frank both looked up. They knew what she was here about.

"You think that Dany's still in love with Sirius too, don't you?" James asked and she nodded. "You think that Katherine disobeyed her father for a man like him, don't you?" She nodded.

"You know her well, Potter. You know both of them well. I'm worried that she's staying with Brady for all of the wrong reasons." She said and Remus and James both nodded.

"She definitely is. She doesn't really want him; she's just sick of waiting on someone she thinks is never going to feel the same way about her. Brady's going to get sick of it eventually; she might snog Brady, but he'll never really have her." James said and Lily nodded. "Not like you can tell her that. She's so deep into fooling everyone that she's fooling herself."

"Touch her mind and you won't have to touch her body." Remus said and they both looked at him. "What? I wasn't the one that came up with it."

"Yeah, what he said." James said.

Sirius' had been sleeping strangely for the past week or so. His dreams hadn't been normal, if he managed to sleep at all. He wondered if this was how Dany felt, seeing herself older and completely changed from what she is now in her visions. There was no way he was having anything akin to what happened to her at night but he kept having similar dreams night after night. Sirius knew from personal experience that wet dreams weren't something that happened every night, they were actually pretty rare for him to have, and he also knew that there was absolutely no reason he should be seeing so much of Dany at night.

Sometimes it was completely innocent, like carrying her into a house as she laughs and tells him to put her down. Most of the time it wasn't innocent at all and he was pulling her shirt off as she straddled him and ran her hands through his hair.

So every night before Sirius went to bed, he double-checked the silencing charms, just in case he started talking or something. The last thing he wanted was for James to hear him saying his Godsister's name at night.

That night was even weirder than usual.

"Dany? Dany! Look at me, baby. Look at me. Just stay with me, love." He was touching her face and her hair with his free hand and starting to cry. "You've got to stay with me. You can't leave me. I just got you back; I can't lose you again, not after all those years apart. Come on, Dan. Just stay with me; just stay awake for me. Oh God…no, no, no. Please no, not her. Anyone but her. Take anyone but her. Take everyone but her. Just not her. Please not her." He was saying and Sirius found this incredibly depressing, even objectively.

"Black! Apparate her to St. Mungo's." One of the other men said and he Apparated her into the lobby of the hospital. People immediately came over and took her from him. Everything blurred for a minute and he was sitting in a lobby when a woman walked out. Rhaegar was sitting next to him.

"Sirius Black." She said and he stood up and followed her into the ward. Michelle Carson was there.

"How is she?" He asked and Sirius thought that he looked like he was about ready to go off the deep end, depending on the answer that the Healer gave him.

"She's alive. We moved her to intensive care. Her pericardium was damaged and we're lucky she's alive at all; she should be dead, but she's hanging on and she's fighting hard to stay alive. This family's really good at hanging on by their fingernails." She said and pushed open the door to a room. Dany looked like she could be dead so was so still. "She's not on a sedative now, but I'd like to put her on one once she starts to wake up on her own; she doesn't need to be spending energy on staying awake. Of course, that's your choice as her next-of-kin." She said and older Sirius nodded.

"Do what you have to. Just bring her back." He said and Michelle nodded.

"Of course. Now, there's something else we need to talk about and you're not going to like it. It's about the baby." She said and Sirius' mouth dropped open. "In all likelihood, she has miscarried." Michelle said and older Sirius looked like someone had slapped him in the face. That look was absolute and pure devastation. "It's very possible that she just couldn't afford to be supporting a second life so her body terminated the pregnancy to save itself. We've seen it happen before, especially with Aurors." She said and older Sirius sat down next to Dany.

Sirius noticed something that caught his attention. He knew why he was her next-of-kin. He was wearing a wedding band. They were married.

"What the fuck?" He gasped as he woke up. He was back in his bed at Hogwarts and was definitively not married. He put his head in his hands and thought about what had just happened. Dany had been dying. And she had been pregnant. And then she had miscarried. His kid. Because they were married. Sirius promptly got up out of bed, walked to the bathroom, and threw up. Fucking dreams. James got up blearily and looked in the bathroom.

"Shit, you're not sick are you?" He asked. Sirius shook his head.

"No, no it was just a dream…go back to sleep, James." He said and James nodded before crawling back into bed. He stared at the toilet and decided that he was done before flushing and getting back into bed. He wasn't going to be sleeping tonight. The way he had been talking to her on the floor of the Potter's house. God, he had been frantic and begging her to stay with him.

Sirius managed to push the dream out of his head and by the time he walked downstairs with his friends, it was all but forgotten. Until Dany walked down with Lily and he saw her in a hospital bed flash in front of him.

"Hey boys." She said cheerily and Lily waved. Everyone said hello and they all started to walk towards the Great Hall, chatting easily with each other. Brady appeared just before they reached the hall and kissed his girlfriend with a little more force than what would probably be considered appropriate for public. Sirius was pretty sure that there was even tongue involved. Dany broke off the kiss, clearly realizing that there were other people around and said something to her boyfriend, which he seemed unaffected by. There was trouble in paradise. She said something else and he shook his head. Sirius tried really hard not to pay attention to what they were saying. It wasn't working. It sounded like Dany was less than thrilled with Brady being so aggressive and he didn't seem to care.

Classy.

They all walked into the Great Hall and Dany sat down next to Lily, looking less than thrilled. Lily said something to her and she shook her head and waved a hand. Ali sat down next to him and he smiled at her. When had she gotten that blonde? Oh well, he thought as she started to snog him.

"Erm, mate? We're going to class." James said and Sirius ignored him for a few seconds and then let go of Ali before getting up and walking out with his friends. He didn't miss the nasty look she threw Dany. Dany noticed and rolled her eyes before walking off, completely disregarding the other girl. Sirius actually thought it was funny how Ali thought she could get under Dany's skin; the girl was criticized on a national scale and Sirius doubted that a single opinion from a girl she didn't care about would do anything to her or her psyche. James fell into step with him. "Why do you keep her around?" He asked and Sirius shrugged.

"What do you mean? She's my girlfriend." He said and James shook his faintly.

"Well as great as that is, why is she your girlfriend?" He asked and Sirius shrugged again.

"She's a good shag? Mate, if I wanted to have a nice touchy-feely talk, I would have let you know. Let's go to class." He said and they followed Dany and Lily to class. Dany appeared to be complaining about Brady.

"…Honestly, I don't want him shoving his tongue down my throat in public. It's just…ugh, it's trashy is all I'm saying." She was saying to her friend. "He doesn't see the problem with it, but even so, shouldn't he at least try to respect my opinion on it?" She asked Lily, who nodded in wholehearted agreement.

"He really should. I'd try talking to him later, Dan. Give him some time to cool off." Lily said and patted her friend on the shoulder. They walked into Herbology and both girls started to pull their hair up in preparation for the messy class, the conversation dropping. Professor Sprout came in moments later with her usual chipper smile.

"Hello, hello everyone! Lovely as always. Now, I'm going to break you off into pairs and we're going to be working with fanged geraniums." Sirius raised an eyebrow. Why she was letting them touch things with fangs was beyond him. "Alright, now get into pairs." She said and they all paired off. "Nice try Potter and Black; I'm not letting you two together near anything pointy. Evans, partner with Potter." She said and Dany and Sirius exchanged looks and were both struggling not to laugh at their respective best friends. Dany switched places with James next to Sirius. "Now, we may continue." She said and went through her talk about how not to lose a finger and then set them loose on the plants. For something that sounded exciting and dangerous, fanged geraniums were rather boring, Sirius and Dany quickly found out. It didn't really do much unless you poked it with your quill.

"I heard you fighting with Brady." He said absently as he poked the plant. Dany looked over at him before returning her attention to the carnivorous plant.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Everything okay?" He asked and she rolled her eyes.

"Sirius, I'm really not in the mood for the same shit about dumping Brady." She said and he shook his head. Did he really harp on getting rid of Brady that much?

"It was an actual question, believe it or not. You can do whatever you want with your boyfriend." He said. "And I take it back. I won't ask next time." He muttered and she stopped prodding the plant and looked over at him.

"Sorry. Everything's fine for the most part. It'll pass. Thank you for asking though." She said and sighed, leaning against the workbench. "He…he just likes everyone to know that we're dating." She said.

"Public snogging?"

"Yup. And I know you do your thing over breakfast, but I just don't think it's for me." She said and ran a hand over her hair and down her ponytail. Sirius glanced over at her and started laughing. She looked alarmed. "What?"

"You had dirt on your hands." He said and she groaned put her face in her hands. Her hair had streaks of the dark brown potting soil in it.

"Why do these things happen to me?" She groaned and looked at him and he continued to laugh. She now had a smear of the dirt down one of her cheeks. It was sticking because she was sweating from the heat in the greenhouse.

"You need to stop touching yourself because now it's on your face too." He said and she rolled her eyes.

"Ugh, I quit. I quit with this bloody class." She said and he shook his head as she tried to rub it off her face. It wasn't going too well. "Stop laughing or you're going to end up with the entire bloody pot on your head, plant included." She said and he tried to stop laughing and failed. She picked up some of the dirt and threw it. It hit him in that face and she started laughing as he tried to get it off his face. He suspected he was only making it worse because she continued to laugh even harder.

"Very cute, Dan. Thank you so much." He said and she shrugged.

"I told you to stop laughing." She said with a shrug as Sprout called the class to a close. Sirius left the greenhouses with Dany, James, and Lily and all three of them refused to get the dirt off of his face and said he'd have to wait until he found a bathroom. Dany still had the traces of the soil in her hair and smudged on her cheek and chin. She looked incredibly dorky and for once, she looked messy in public. Seeing her in sweatpants and giant shirts weren't unusual if they were up late at night or on lazy days, but seeing her look messy at all in public was extremely rare. Brady appeared out of nowhere and seemed less than thrilled with the fact that two of the four of them had potting soil on them.

"Uh, what happened?" He asked and she shrugged.

"We were working with the plants and I accidentally touched my face with dirt on my hands." She said and he seemed confused.

"What happened to him?" He asked and gestured to Sirius. Dany glanced back at him.

"Oh, yeah he laughed so I threw dirt at him." She said and James and Lily both tired to suppress smiles. Sirius was still upset that no one would clean his face off. Brady didn't seem amused by any of this.

"We need to talk. Alone." He said. Dany nodded before walking off with him.

"Always so charming." Sirius said idly and Lily glared at him. "What? You can't tell me that you appreciate him talking to her like that." Lily shrugged.

"Not particularly. I'm sure it's fine though." She said and walked off. James glanced at him.

"You have it so bad for her." He said and Sirius rolled his eyes and hit him over the head. "Oh, and out of curiosity, are you planning on dumping Hayden before break?" Sirius nodded.

He dumped Alison Hayden the next day and two days after they returned to school from Spring Break, he started dating Jessie Simpson. She was still around as the year pulled to a close.

Okay, so a lot of you are probably wondering what the hell is up with Sirius' wonky dreams like is he just going insane (no, he's still blissfully sane)?

So, there's a connection between Dany's conversation with the dragon and Sirius' weird dreams BUT that connection only becomes relevant in a forthcoming part of Feel Again so right now, no one knows but me

However, if you keep up with Feel Again, you'll see the connection in a bit, so if you're curious, this is your incentive to go read!

Don't forget to review!

Love, Essie