"Now we're back in the mist," Sirius observed dryly.

"I'm not entirely certain we ever left," Amelia replied.

"Come again?"

"Have you ever used a Pensieve? The strands of memory are a silvery-grey. Similar in color to the mist."

"So you're saying the mist is memory?"

"Er, not exactly. But this is very much like a Pensieve. Maybe the mist amplifies the memory?" She noticed the look he was giving her. "I'm making this up!" she exclaimed. "All right? I don't have a bloody clue what in Merlin's name is going on, so I'm just making up something that seems to make sense with what I know at the moment, and reconsidering the finer points later on. Happy now?"

He laughed. "It's unusual to see you at such a loss. And no books to look up the answers in."

"I really am making this up. We are just randomly progressing between memories."

"Randomly? It doesn't seem random," Sirius interjected. "There does seem to be some link between the memories we relive."

Amelia opened her mouth to object, then closed it again. "You could be right." She looked around. "Of all the times to not have any sort of paper around! And to think I never liked making lists much. Now that I want to, I can't. Fine, let's try to talk it out. What's the first thing you remember about what's happening?"

"The Department of Mysteries," Sirius replied promptly.

"Hmm. I remember falling."

"Falling?" he repeated.

"Yes, I was falling, and then I remembered the Department of Mysteries – which was why I was falling. But I was falling first."

"Huh. I wonder why." He shrugged it away. "We can work on that later. Shouldn't let ourselves get side-tracked yet. The park was next, wasn't it?"

Amelia tried to order her thoughts. "I was falling, then it went back to why I was falling, and then I was trying . . . to find a way out. Maybe. But after that, I was in the hall, conspiring to get you out of that wretched house. So, yes, the park. Then the train, and then it jumped ahead to the Sorting."

"And then the mist, where we decided we weren't dead."

"Yes, and the mist revisited the words spoken on the Hogwarts express, before dumping us in Godric's Hollow."

"Then your kitchen. 'This is getting ridiculous.'"

"Yes. And it is. It's just jumping around. There's no order to it."

"No. Because next was my wand. I asked about your wand – and that's where we went next."

"But after that came Lily's wedding – no wait, first it was the cave, then the wedding."

"Your appearance outside Hogsmeade was very important."

"But I don't see how that's related to Lily's wedding."

"Nor do I, but there is some connection to the wedding and our exit from the Shrieking Shack. You had been discussing Lily's sister and her husband, who came up in the conversation between me and Harry. And, like the memory of the train, it jumped to later that night."

"And you compared Harry to James," Amelia said, her eyes widening. "Which you did again in the scene that followed. That was what? September? October?"

"Something like that. But we also mentioned James and Remus and getting in trouble – "

"Which was what the next memory was about!"

"Exactly. So there is some pattern."

"And then you said something about lashing out at your family – and you compared Avery and the Death Eaters to your mother."

"You were talking about your family, and they came up next. And you missed them and then we jumped to your friends."

"Yeah, Frannie. But then I brought up what happened to Alice – "

"And that's where we went. I started talking about Harry's Quidditch game – "

"And we watched it."

"Then you said not to revisit the past. And behold! No memory, just mist."

"So we have some control over what we see. And it seems like we the more we saw, the more we could control."

"So does that mean we are going further in or further out?"

"I'm not sure. If it was further in, we'd be getting closer to the memories, which could provide more control. On the other hand, it could be further out, and we are sorting out the maze, and thus can offer more control in what we see. There's no way to be certain."

"So that's no help."

A soft whisper broke through the mists.

"Severus . . ."

Amelia froze. She recognized that voice, though she didn't understand why she was hearing it now. She felt Sirius stiffen beside her.

"Severus . . . please . . . " Dumbledore was pleading, his voice weaker than Amelia had ever heard it before. He sounded tired, very, very tired. In that moment, Amelia knew what was going to happen. Knew it even before Severus' voice pierced the mist.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"No!" Amelia's scream of horror burst from her throat. She was vaguely aware of hearing Sirius cry out simultaneously.

It was as if the mist had invaded her head. She couldn't think. It couldn't – she hadn't – it wasn't – no, it couldn't be. It couldn't. "Dumbledore – he always – trusted Severus. I thought – I thought – Dumbledore – "

There were no words, no words that could overcome the shock.

"That wasn't a memory," Amelia whispered hoarsely. She knew it wasn't, though she didn't know how she knew.

Sirius was also in shock. "But – then – how – how did we hear – that? That was – that was Dumbledore! He – he is – he wouldn't have – been caught off guard. He always – he plans – and he – he can't be – "

"I don't know. I don't – understand. Dumbledore – he always – he kept saying he trusted Severus, that he had an – ironclad – reason to trust him." Amelia was shaking. Dumbledore was a rock, an anchor, the core of the Order, the only one Voldemort ever feared. He just – couldn't be gone.

"How do you trust a Death Eater?" Sirius said harshly. "It was right there, branded on his arm," he spat. "You can't come back from that. Double agents – you can't trust them. They're traitors. They betray their friends."

A little part of Amelia's mind recalled another traitor, one who had taken the lives of a pair of good friends, ruining Sirius's life in the process.

"That – sniveling – greasy –git," Sirius snarled. "James should have let Moony get him."

"What are you talking about?" Amelia asked confused. She was floundering and seized upon anything that would distract her and stop her from dwelling on what they'd just heard.

The mists rippled around them before Sirius could explain.

Hogwarts. There was no other place like it. Nearly two decades after she left, there was no mistaking its corridors.

It was late and the corridors were mostly empty. A Slytherin boy paused by a window and looked across the grounds. The hook-nose was almost as unmistakable as the hallway he stood in. Amelia moved closer to see what had caught Severus' attention. A pair of people walked down the stone steps, crossing the dark grounds. One of them looked to be – Madam Pomfrey? And – and Remus?

With a sick feeling, Amelia glanced up at the moon. It didn't appear to be up yet, but they were clearly on their way to the Whomping Willow.

Amelia wasn't the only one in the corridor to notice Severus' interest in the view from the window. A teenage Sirius glanced out the window at his friend and turned a frown on Severus' back. Severus was watching the scene below him intently and didn't notice the Gryffindor boy until Sirius came up behind him.

"What are you looking at?" Sirius said, somewhat neutrally.

Snape spun, startled, his face darkening as he recognized one of his nemeses. "Nothing," he replied, all emotion gone from his face, locked up tight within him.

Sirius made a pointed glance out the window. "Doesn't look like nothing. Looks to me like you're spying on Remus. Again."

"And what if I am? I don't recall any prohibition on looking out the windows of the castle."

"Of course not, Snivellus," Black sneered. "I'm sure you are completely uninterested in trying to learn the routes out of the school. You were watching them leave, weren't you? Watching them prod the knot on the trunk with a long stick to freeze the Willow, huh? Were you thinking of following them? What interest do you have to sneaking out of school, Snivellus?"

"No interest," Snape said quickly. But there was calculation in his eyes as they flickered to the now-empty grounds and back.

"Keep it that way," Sirius said coldly. "I don't want to hear you spying on my friends again." He walked away without a backward glance.

"Oh, Merlin, Sirius, you . . . what were you thinking?" Amelia implored. "You did that on purpose!" she accused. "Piquing his curiosity so he'll follow, and not warning him what he's going to find when he does? He could have gotten killed!"

Sirius ignored her as he ducked behind a suit of armor, watching Severus stare intently out the window before leaving – heading purposefully in the direction of the entrance hall. With a satisfied smirk, Sirius left his hiding spot and turned down a side hall.

James met him two floors up. "Where were you? You were supposed to meet me by the Fat Lady ten minutes ago!"

"I was getting rid of a nuisance. Snivellus won't be bothering us tonight," Sirius said smugly.

James chuckled. "That's quite a feat. Almost as good as what we've accomplished. How'd you manage it?"

"I sent him to get the 'git' scared out of him."

Some of the humor faded from James' face. "What did you do?"

"I told him how to get under the Whomping Willow."

James went white. "Tonight? With Moony down there? He could get a lot more than scared! He could get killed! Moony could kill him by accident!"

Sirius paled. "I didn't think – "

"No!" James exclaimed. "You didn't! What would happen to Moony if his furry little problem killed someone? Huh? Try thinking about that next time!" James turned and ran for the stairs.

Sirius still looked pale and a bit wide-eyed when Wormtail arrived a few minutes later.

"What's happening?" he asked. "Where's James?"

"Prongs is protecting Moony from my stupidity."

"That is putting it mildly!" Amelia shouted at the memory. "Snape could have been killed! Worse! He could have been bitten! Remus would have surely been expelled! And you! Expulsion was the least of what you might have gotten! Do you never think ahead?"

"Prongs and Moony were more the 'think ahead' ones," Sirius replied.

"Clearly! Frankly I'm amazed you had the presence of mind to escape Azkaban!"

"I had nothing to do but think in that place."

"And evidently that's what you needed!" Amelia snapped at him. "This stunt could have destroyed the three of you! Even James and Peter might have been caught in the backlash!"

"Nothing happened. James stopped him."

"That's not the point!"

"I know. It was one of the most foolish things I've ever done," Sirius admitted. "If James hadn't been sensible – " He shrugged. "James ended up being the sensible one a great deal of the time. Still, it wouldn't have been more than Snape deserved."

His words were like a bucket of ice water, reminding Amelia of what had led them into this memory.

"I still – I can't believe Dumbledore – was deceived – so badly."

"Think about it," Sirius countered. "Snivellus had to be fooling one of them, Moldy-wart or Dumbledore. That's not easy to do. Dumbledore thought Snape was deceiving Voldemort; if he could do that, then he certainly could have been lying to Dumbledore instead."

Amelia found herself nodding reluctantly. "He was an accomplished Occlumens, after all."

"Dumbledore had him teaching Harry Occlumency. Not that that worked particularly well." Sirius scowled. Then his expression cleared. "Hey, couldn't you have taught Harry Occlumency?"

But Amelia shook her head. "I'm a much better Legilimens than I am an Occlumens. I can only do basic Occlumency techniques. I am nowhere near the level of skill that Severus possesses. All I can really do is blank my mind, make it 'not there.' It's how I evaded the dementors when I went to visit you. They're blind, they can only sense emotions. I close down, and there are no emotions for them to sense. Therefore they never knew I was there."

Sirius chuckled. "I still have trouble wrapping my head around that, you know. Who tries to sneak into Azkaban?"

Amelia snorted. "People who want answers more than anything else."

Grey mist reclaimed their surroundings.