Harry awoke with a groan. It was 6am on Saturday morning and Wood had been adamant that the entire Gryffindor team meet on the pitch at 6:30 sharp to begin practice. Wood had been running the team ragged with laps and all manner of exercises. As it was his last year at Hogwarts, Wood seemed intent on winning the Quidditch cup. Harry had been caught up in the captain's enthusiasm and determination at first but after leaving practices winded, cold, bruised, and sore, he was sure that Wood's obsession with the cup was bordering on mania. Despite this conclusion, Harry still dragged himself out of bed for practice. If anything, flying helped him keep his mind off the revelations and his despondency over being unable to join his friends for the Hogsmeade trip later that day. He quickly dressed and went down to the Great Hall, hoping that there would be some time to grab some toast before practice.

About two hours later, Harry stepped back into the castle. His nose was runny from the cold and his hair was even more messy than usual. Even though he felt slightly ill from Wood having him practice one too many dives, he felt the rush of endorphins and adrenaline all the same and was in a relatively good mood. His arrival at the Gryffindor table to join Ron and Hermione for breakfast, however, soon whittled away the little good humor he had gained. Ron was stuffing his face and telling Hermione about all of the different shops that they would visit in Hogsmeade. When Hermione saw Harry approach, she had initially tried to shush Ron but Harry felt almost more insulted by her pitying glance. Harry listened with envy as Ron spoke about the variety of products at Zonko's and about the butterbeers at Honeydukes. He supposed that, had he grown up a wizard, these small novelties would not have seemed as important as they did now. This brought up feelings of bitterness that he did not quite understand and he chugged his pumpkin juice to hide the scowl that was quickly overcoming his face. Hermione, who seemed a little brighter eyed that she had been the past few weeks, looked over to Harry. "Did Professor Dumbledore say that there was any way that he could give you permission, Harry?" She asked softly.

Harry shook his head. He shrugged and responded, "Professor Dumbledore says that only a guardian of mine could sign it."

Hermione nodded in response. Ron joined the conversation, "Cheer up, mate! I'll bring you back loads of things from Zonko's and from Honeydukes! In any case, there's still the feast tonight."

Harry smiled and thanked him. However, a sudden thought came to mind. He suddenly remembered Lady DuLac and wondered briefly if she would be able to sign his forms. More importantly, he had a few questions about their familial ties. Harry had not confided in Ron and Hermione still, there were still too many missing pieces of information and too much emotional baggage to process. He was unsure of how he would handle their questions. Unfortunately, since the incident in Snape's office, Harry had seen very little of the Lady. She was not often at meals in the Great Hall and when she was in the castle, she always seemed rushing off to check on something. She had not managed much conversation with Harry besides a quick hello and a nod every once in awhile. At one point, she had asked Harry how his classes were going when she spied Crookshanks leaping for Scabbers and chasing him down the hall. Ron and Hermione had immediately started yelling at each other. The Lady stared at Crookshanks and simply stated, "How curious," before walking away in deep thought. In addition, the Lady was often in the company of Professor Snape while patrolling the halls, which made Harry very apprehensive about approaching her. He made a mental note to look for the Lady when the rest of the students had gone off to Hogsmeade.

After he waved Ron and Hermione off, however, Harry felt a new bout of despondency and listlessness. He wandered about the castle and thought briefly of going up to Hagrid's hut. Unfortunately, the man hadn't been in his best spirits since the incident with Buckbeak and Malfoy. Harry cursed Malfoy under his breath and remembered that Malfoy had talked about his father coming up to the castle to speak with Dumbledore. Harry wanted to be there when that happened to explain that Malfoy had been a git. Never mind that he would probably have to explain it a little better than that. He decided to walk up to the owlery to visit Hedwig. As he was climbing up the stairs, he encountered a familiar figure, Professor Lupin. Harry enjoyed Lupin's classes. They were easily his favorite classes of the year and after hearing about the Broggart and the Snape in vulture hat incident, Harry was even more favorably inclined towards his defense professor.

"Hello, Harry." Lupin smiled warmly at him. "You aren't with your classmates today?"

"Hogsmeade," replied Harry, trying very hard, and failing, to hide his disappointment.

"Oh...well then, I've been meaning to ask you to take some tea with me? Would you care to join me this afternoon?" Lupin asked placidly.

Harry shrugged. Having tea with a professor, even one he liked, was not something he was particularly in the mood for but he did not have anything else to do.

Lupin smile seemed to falter for a moment at Harry's noncommittal response but he regained his composure. Harry wondered how adults always seemed to smile through things. "Well then, I'll take that as a yes? I have a grindilow in a tank that you might enjoy seeing."

Harry did perk up at this comment. He had always enjoyed seeing the different creatures in the wizarding world. "Sure," he gave Lupin a tentative smile which caused the older man to brighten considerably.

Lupin's office was as shabby as the man's robe. It was dark and many of the books that the professor owned seemed to be well-used. He placed two chipped teacups on his desk and waved his wand at a teapot.

"I only have teabags," began the man conversationally, "however, I've heard that you may have had enough of tea leaves."

"You've heard?" Harry was startled from his observations of the grindylow making faces at him.

"Word travels quickly in this castle, though I picked up this tidbit from Professor McGonagall." Lupin poured tea into the two cups and passed one to Harry. Harry pretended not to notice that the man had not offered him cream or sugar. He had prepared tea under Aunt Petunia's exacting standards for years and was sorely tempted to wipe down the hot water that lingered on the spout of the teapot.

"So," started Lupin, "Apart from Divination where you have been subject to the Grim, do you have any concerns about your classes this term? I know that you've missed our class with the Broggart..."

Harry did have a question pertaining to that incident, "Er, yes, actually sir.."

"You don't need to call me sir, Harry, I've never been one to stand on formality." Harry met Lupin's blue eyes for a moment before continuing.

"Right, s-I'mean, right, er," Harry had never been particularly good at making small talk with adults save for Professor Dumbledore. "I was wondering, why did you ask Lady DuLac to supervise that lesson...I mean...I heard from Ron and Hermione that it wasn't that hard and Neville was able to beat it..." Harry wondered if the man would be cross with him for asking questions.

Lupin furrowed his brow slightly and seemed to carefully consider his next words. "Well, Harry, to be perfectly, honest. It was because I expected your broggart to be Voldermort."

Harry started, mostly because he did not know anyone else who called Voldermort by his name apart from Dumbledore.

Lupin took this as Harry being affronted. "It wasn't that I did not expect that you wouldn't be able to handle it, Harry, I had just thought it wise to have some precautions in case we had Voldermort suddenly materialize in the staff room. I brought up these concerns to the headmaster and he suggested that Lady DuLac would know how to best handle a group of panicked students."

Harry accepted this answer and nodded.

Lupin continued, "I must say, Harry, you're doing incredibly well in my classes. You seem to have a knack for handling dark creatures, not unlike your father." The graying professors eyes grew bright with this statement.

"You..knew my dad?" asked Harry. He was excited by the prospect of someone being able to tell him more about his parents.

"I did, indeed, in fact, he was one of my very good friends."

Harry felt a surge of excitement and had a million questions on the tip of his tongue when there was a sharp knock on Lupin's door. Harry's good mood instantly vanished when he saw Snape enter with a steaming goblet of some kind of potion that he handed to Lupin.

"Thank you, Severus." Professor Lupin smiled at the potions professor.

"You should take this right away, Lupin," answered Snape, scowling. He seemed to want to say something else but looked at Harry and narrowed his eyes.

"Mr. Potter was just marveling at my newest acquisition, the grindylow."

Snape nodded but did not seem to be listening. "I made a whole cauldron in case you needed more," He stated tersely as he turned to Lupin.

There was a light rap on the doorframe of the office. Harry felt frustrated that his questioning of Lupin was interrupted. Lady DuLac appeared in the doorway. "There you are, Severus! I was just meaning to ask about the patrol schedule for the feast tonight," she said as she entered in the room. She briefly looked at the occupants and smiled at Harry. "Harry, good to see you! I noticed that you weren't amongst the students who went into Hogsmeade." The last sentence was spoken more of as a question. Harry suddenly remembered why he had wanted to speak with the Lady earlier. "Er...my guard-my uncle didn't sign my form," he mumbled and looked at the ground. He paused and then asked, "But, I was wondering, er...if you...if you were my relative whether you could..." He trailed off, unsure of how he had wanted to ask the question.

Lady DuLac looked at Harry. "You are wondering whether I could do what, Harry?"

Snape raised his eyebrow at this and continued to scrutinize Harry like he was some kind of repulsive potions ingredient. He sneered and stated, "And why would Mr. Potter even need to go into Hogsmeade? For a handful of tricks and candy? Really, Mr. Potter, your disappointment can be nothing to the fact that-"

Lupin interjected at this point, "Come now, Severus, surely you remember how fun Hogsmeade was when we were children." Harry had listened to the beginning of Snape's tirade with a mixture of anger and shame. He knew that it did not make sense for him to venture out of Hogwarts with Sirius Black on the loose but this only served to make him angrier. Why couldn't he have a normal childhood? With guardians who cared about him? Clearly, there were at least two other people in the room who had the pleasure of knowing his parents. Harry barely remembered them. He was about to yell back at professor Snape when Lady DuLac broke in, "Really, Severus!" She looked exasperatedly at Snape.

However, Snape was not to be deterred. He turned furiously towards, Lupin, His lank hair hitting his cheeks. "Of course you would sanction foolhardiness Lupin! When has anything sensible ever crossed your beast-like mind?! Or perhaps, you want Mr. Potter lured out of the castle! How very convenient that the year that Black breaks loose, you happen to talk to the Headmaster about finding a new post!"

Lupin looked hurt by this accusation. "I would never endanger, Harry! However, unlike you Severus, I do have a sense of what boys his age-"

Severus sneered disdainfully, "The old 'boys will be boys' adage," his voice was dangerous and low. "So typical of you Lupin to fall back into that. Especially considering YOUR background, I-"

"Enough!" Lady DuLac cut in sharply. "Severus, I suppose I will meet you in your office later. We do need to discuss the patrols and since YOU are an ADULT and a PROFESSOR, I expect you find a way to be GRACIOUS about it. I need to speak with PROFESSOR Lupin to ask a few questions and I find that it might be a burden on your time to sit through this." She glared at him as if daring him to counter it. He glared mutinously at her.

"Fine, but don't blame me when Black gets ahold of Potter!" he stated sharply as he spun on his heels and exited the room, his robes billowing around him.

Lady DuLac rolled her eyes. "How dramatic..." she muttered.

Harry suddenly found the whole situation hilarious and snorted. Lady DuLac looked at him and offered him a weary smile. "It seems that we missed your question during that rather interesting interchange, Harry. I hope that I will be able to give you a more full answer to it shortly. Would you mind waiting outside while I speak with Professor Lupin for a few moments. It won't take longer than 10 minutes. There's a nice picture down the hallway of a group of witches around a bonfire. If you ask them nicely, they might tell you some interesting gossip about students from the year 1899. Don't ask me why that particular year interests them, but some of the stories are interesting. Your mother showed me that." She winked at Harry.

"Er...ok..." Harry had a burning curiosity about what Lady DuLac wanted to ask Lupin. He walked slowly out of the room and shut the door behind him. He walked away, careful to let his footsteps be heard and then he slightly crept back to the door to try to listen. He was so pre-occupied by this task that he didn't notice a certain darkly-clad potions professor leaning on the opposite wall, until a voice startled him. "It's impolite to be listening to conversations between staff, Potter, or perhaps your relatives did not raise you to know manners..."

Harry spun around abruptly. He scowled at the Professor. He didn't know what came over him in that moment. "No, I wouldn't know Professor! I could act like my Uncle Vernon and bellow at people and order them around! Or maybe, I could be more like my fat pig cousin, Dudley and hit people with a stick! Both my aunt and uncle found that funny! Should I do that?!"

Snape's face turned white with rage. "How dare you speak to me like that?! You insolent, ungrateful-"

"Stop it!" yelled Harry. "Just stop alright! I'm not trying to disrespect you. I never have!" Well, except for the time that I stole from his potions cupboard and that time that I thought he was going to steal the stone..."And if I had," he continued. "It was only because you always find a reason to yell at me and to call me spoiled!"

"How can you not be spoiled?" drawled Snape cooly. "Everyone, everyone in this world tries to protect you, tries to shield you even as you and your foolish friends put yourselves directly in harms way. You act constantly as if you are above the rules. Do you know how ungrateful you are?! The ministry turns a blind eye when you maliciously play a cruel trick on your uncle's sister, blowing her up. Tell me, which nasty Weasley concoction did you use, Potter? Thought it be a big laugh to try it out on hapless muggles, did you?"

"I DID NOT DO IT ON PURPOSE!" yelled Harry. At this point, both Lupin and Lady DuLac had opened the door to see what the commotion was outside. "I don't know how she blew up, alright?! I was angry! WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF SOMEONE CALLED YOUR MUM A BITCH AND YOU WOULDN'T EVEN KNOW WHETHER IT WAS TRUE OR NOT BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T KNOW HER?!"

Snape's lips were thin as he glared at Harry. Lupin and Lady DuLac looked on in shock.

"All I can remember," continued Harry. "All I can remember is her screaming to save me. Apparently it's my worst memory and that...that is the only memory I have of my mum. So you can call me spoiled, you can call me a brat, but never, ever, tell me, that I am ungrateful!" Tears flooded his eyes and he turned and ran down the hall.