"Professor! Professor Flitwick!" Amelia called, as she ran down the corridor to her Head of House.

"Yes, Miss Zeraff?" the tiny Charms professor inquired. Amelia came to a halt beside him.

"Have you heard from Frannie? Francine Kerris," she elaborated. "I haven't heard from her since just after Christmas, and she wasn't on the train back to school . . . " Amelia took a deep breath. "Do you know what happened?"

Amelia watched Professor Flitwick's face fall. The sorrow in his eyes had her shaking her head in denial. "No, no. She was a pureblood! She should have been safe!" She tried to blink the tears from her eyes, but they only fell faster.

"Miss Kerris was visiting Mr. Richards and his family," Flitwick gently informed her. Marcus Richards was a Muggleborn wizard in their year who Frannie had recently started dating. "His entire block was found in ruins. I know you were close friends. If there is anything I can do to help – if – if you think my cupcakes might help – "

Amelia shook her head. "N-no. Th-thank you." Dancing cupcakes, no matter how cute and delicious, could never compare to her best friend. She walked to the Ravenclaw Tower as if in a trance.

"What is the now?" the eagle knocker asked, breaking into Amelia's blank thoughts.

"N-now?" Amelia repeated haltingly. She stared at the door as if she had never seen it before. "Now she isn't here. She's n-not coming back. She's dead. My best friend is d-dead. I'll never see her again – or – or laugh with her. She's gone!" Amelia sank to the floor, uncontrollably sobbing.

Running footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. "Amelia! Have you heard from Frannie? Where is she?" Alice exclaimed. "Amelia, what's wrong?"

"What is the now?" the knocker repeated.

"Now? Er . . . I reckon now is what we perceive as our current place in the flow of time," Alice answered.

"Nicely phrased," replied the eagle door knocker as the door swung open. Alice helped Amelia through.

"What happened, Amelia?" she asked quietly.

"Frannie's dead," Amelia sobbed. "She was visiting Marcus and they're all dead!"

For an instant Alice looked as if she had been Stunned, but slowly her face crumpled and she began crying too.

In six months they would have graduated Hogwarts with plans to become Aurors. There had been some talk that they might join the shadowy "Order" that was organizing to oppose the growing numbers of Death Eaters.

"We did it all," Amelia said absently, shaking off the disorientation of separating from her past-self. "Everything we had planned to do as the three of us, we still did as the two of us. It wasn't the same; we were constantly reminded there should have been another. That only increased our determination to become Aurors. The three years of training were quite condensed, and highly practical. Between the Ministry and the Order, frankly I'm surprised Alice found time to get married, but then Frank was an Auror as well, and they did spend a considerable amount of time together, and they had gotten together while in Hogwarts.. And – and then – when we thought the worst was over – "

The Ravenclaw common room dissolved.

Amelia Apparated in front of an old, well cared-for house. She knew that house –

She dropped to her knees in the snow, refusing to follow her younger self into the house.

"Isn't this the Longbottoms' house?" Sirius asked her.

"Yes," Amelia said weakly. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I was the one that found them – a-after." She couldn't get their vacant expressions out of her head. "It should have been over. Voldemort was gone. They should have been safe. They never recovered. They are still in St. Mungo's, in the Janus Thickey Ward for l-long-term residents."

"Bellatrix did this," Sirius said through clenched teeth.

"Her, her husband, his brother, and young Barty Crouch. I was one of the ones that hunted them down. I hunted them down, saw them sentenced to Azkaban – and then I left. I quit. I couldn't stand it anymore. There should have been three of us. Me, Frannie, and Alice. We were going to be Aurors together. But Frannie was dead. And it would have been kinder if Alice was dead. So I left. I turned my back on the wizarding world. They were all celebrating . Most of the people I considered friends were dead or as good as dead – and I just couldn't stand that the entire wizarding community just wanted to celebrate and then forget the War had ever happened."

"Where did you go?" he asked, curious.

"I took my Mum's advice and joined the Muggle world."

"The Muggle world?"

"Yeah. I became a librarian. It was quiet, and I was surrounded by books all day."

"And you just – dropped magic?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"No, I kept magic. Half of my house was spelled. I studied magic texts at the library – all they saw was a book. I just avoided the magical community."

"No Quidditch?"

"No Quidditch," she replied. "I only ever really got interested in Quidditch because Frannie was on the House team. She was a Chaser."

"Like James."

"Yeah."

They sat there in the snow in silence. Amelia didn't look up at the house. Inside, her younger self had found four Death Eaters torturing her friend. She drove them off, but that was only because neither Alice nor Frank was left with enough of a mind to provide the answers that were demanded – answers they didn't know anyway. If she had arrived sooner, maybe she could have saved them.

"If you had come sooner, the Lestranges might have gotten you, too."

Amelia looked over at Sirius, startled. "I didn't realize I'd said that out loud," she said.

"You didn't. But you might as well have; it was all over your face."

"I didn't know you were so good at reading people."

"I'm not, usually."

Conversation died again as the snow fell around them. Amelia held out a hand, watching a few snowflakes land on it. She realized she wasn't feeling the cold.

"Thank you, Harry. Let us go."

"What do you suppose they're doing?"

"Harry and Dumbledore?"

"Yeah. What are they looking for in the Pensieve? This makes – what? Five times we've heard them now?"

"I don't know. Maybe something to defeat Voldemort?"

"I suppose. But how are Slughorn and Horcruxes involved?"

"It would help if we knew what Horcruxes were."

"I've never heard of them before, not in anything I've read."

"You're certain?"

"Yes."

Sirius sighed. "I guess it doesn't matter, anyway. We have to find our way out of here."

"But how do we do that? And what will we find if we get there?"

"You're the one who figured out what's happening, you tell me."

"I don't know! I don't even know if we can get out of here!" Amelia exclaimed.

For a long moment Sirius didn't say anything. "You were very close to them weren't you?"

"Frannie and Alice? We were almost as close as you and James, I'd suspect."

"The War took so many."

Amelia looked away.

"What is it?" Sirius asked.

"My father. Remember how I said he was a Muggle lawman? They got him, too. I don't even think it had anything to do with the fact he married a witch."

"I'm sorry."

"What's one more among the many casualties? I almost dropped out of Auror training right then, but he wouldn't have wanted me to quit. But I did anyway. Just over two years later. Mum hasn't been the same since."

Sirius thought for a moment. The math wasn't particularly difficult. "He died in '79? My father died that year. He wasn't as bad as my mother, but he wasn't much better either."

"I hate to tell you this, but your whole family's screwed up."

"Andromeda's not bad. And you like Tonks."

"But they were disowned. Anyone your family liked didn't have a chance."

Another silence. Then – "Reggie also died that year."

"But – he was barely out of Hogwarts! He couldn't have been a Death Eater for very long."

"Long enough. No one ever found him. He just vanished. The Order had no information, so it must have been the other side."

"Vanished? Like Caradoc Dearborn?"

"Something like that. Do you realize how many of the original Order didn't make it out?"

"Most of them. Most of our friends. Why do you think I was so keen to hide myself in the Muggle world? Anywhere else had too many memories of people who weren't coming back. I bought myself a place, and other than my mother, I'm the only witch who's ever come near it."

"You know what we need?"

"What?"

"A fun memory. None of these bad ones. Quidditch maybe?"

Amelia laughed despite everything. "You and James and Quidditch." She shook her head.

"I spied on one of Harry's games his third year. He flies just like James."

"James let the fact he was the alternate Seeker and won the game that time Richie Coor was in the Hospital Wing fourth year inflate his head more than it already was. That was when he started playing with the Snitch all the time."

"I will admit we weren't the most mature students in our year. And, yeah, we let the attention go to our head, but he got just as much praise for all the other games he played as Chaser. But Seekers get more attention and Chasers were easier to replace."

"You were a Beater, weren't you? And Frannie was a Chaser for Ravenclaw." A fragment of an earlier memory stirred. "Did your brother play for Slytherin?"

There was a delay before Sirius answered. "He was the Seeker."

"Like Harry." When Sirius didn't respond, Amelia continued. "When did you see him play?"

"The first year, when I kept trying to get at Wormtail. It wasn't his best game, I'd reckon. With the weather and the dementors and his Nimbus."

"What about his Nimbus?"

"Harry got a Nimbus 2000 his first year when he accidentally impressed McGonagall with his skills and got himself on the team."

"In his first year?" Amelia exclaimed. "That would have made him the youngest house player in – something like a century."

"You and your books, Amelia." Sirius shook his head. "Anyway – "

The Longbottom house dissolved into the gray.

Amelia was sitting in the Quidditch stands, in the topmost row, which was empty except for a large, black dog. It was dark and raining and she could barely tell the two teams apart. Some of the figures on brooms wore mud-splattered Gryffindor scarlet and the others wore – yellow?

"Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff," Sirius announced.

"How can they play in this weather? Isn't it dangerous?"

"It's not the weather that caused was the biggest problem, this game."

"Okay, Mr. Quidditch-Know-It-All. You remember this. What happened?"

"I think this is after the Gryffindor captain called for a time-out. The Gryffindor captain was the Keeper, the Hufflepuff captain was – the Seeker, I think. Yeah, and look! That one's Harry!"

He pointed to a dark-haired boy flying nearby wearing mud and scarlet. In the momentary illumination provided by a flash of lightning, Amelia recognized a drenched Harry. He was staring at their part of the stands. Did he see them? No, he was looking at the enormous dog that ducked under the seats once it realized it had been spotted.

"Harry!" came an anguished yell from the Gryffindor goal posts. The captain? "Harry, behind you!"

And then Harry looked wildly around before pelting in the direction of someone in yellow chasing after what looked to be a tiny flicker of gold.

Amelia stared in horror at the dementors that flooded onto the field, all looking up – at Harry. "What are dementors doing on the Quidditch field?" she asked quietly.

"Making nuisances of themselves and losing Gryffindor the game," Sirius answered promptly. "Harry was affected badly by the dementors – as you can see." And there was Harry, falling off his broom – toward the dementors.

But there also was Dumbledore, running onto the field. And even at this distance Amelia could clearly see the fury on his face. He waved his wand, slowing Harry's fall. Then he leveled his wand at the dementors and a silver phoenix was chasing them away.

"Gryffindor lost," Sirius repeated, indicating the boy in yellow holding something tightly in his hand. "And Harry's Nimbus got caught in the wind . . ." Amelia saw the broom, drifting away from the stadium, right towards –

"It got splintered by the Whomping Willow," Sirius finished.

Amelia winced.

"Harry was fine; he started taking extra lessons with Remus to learn to produce a Patronus, so he could fight the dementors off next time. I heard that during his next game, some Slytherin students tried to sabotage him by dressing up as dementors – and a silver stag ran them down."

"That's what he did at the end of the year to drive the dementors away, wasn't it? That night."

"Thirteen years old and already capable of producing a corporeal patronus. He's James and Lily's son, alright," Sirius said proudly.

"And you bought him the Firebolt?"

"He needed a new broom, and with his abilities a lesser broom would have been a crime."

"You like getting him brooms, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"His first broom?"

"Oh. Yeah, that. I missed the chance to see him grow up. Twelve years. It was twelve years since I saw him, almost thirteen before I had a chance to talk to him."

"You weren't trying to talk to him, if I recall. You were too busy playing with Hermione's cat, trying to destroy the only chance you had to prove your innocence."

"Almost twelve years in Azkaban, it changes a person. They couldn't take the knowledge of my innocence from me, couldn't take the knowledge of Peter from me. Can you blame me if I dwelled on it? Can you blame me for also not exactly trusting the Ministry? I never got a trial! And Minister of Magic I'm-an-ass Fudge was the one that arrested me. So, no, I didn't concern myself with trying to prove my innocence. You remember Fudge and his fabulous ability to deny a truth he doesn't want to hear. He never would have given me a chance. So it was just as well. With no wand and no support, I wouldn't have been able to keep hold of Peter, and the Ministry wouldn't have given me an opportunity to explain." Finishing his tirade, Sirius glared at her.

"Sorry," she said, holding her hands up in peace. "We don't have to revisit that."

The stormy Quidditch field went gray.