AN at the bottom…

As the sound of footsteps faded away she stepped out of the shadows and continued making her way down the corridor. Looking back over her shoulder she saw the faint outline of a shadow disappearing around the corner. She huffed a short sigh and turned around.

'Why Ms Enouire!'

Toria bit her tongue to stop from crying out as she stopped short as she came face to face with Nick. His translucent head wobbled slightly as he looked down at her, eyes wide.

'I didn't expect to see you about the castle at this time of night.'

She gaped at him, resuming her now-quick pace down the hall. She wasn't at all surprised when the ghost merely hovered beside her, or the fact that his tone was one of absolute casual conversation.

'Although, I shouldn't have completely ruled it out, I suppose,' he said, oblivious to her unresponsiveness. 'Who else but the prefects, professors and yourself would be out and about at this time.'

She pursed her lips, rushing up the steps as quickly as she could whilst trying not to look impolite.

'I do hope you had a pleasant summer, Miss Enouire.'

'I did, thank you Nick,' Toria said amusedly albeit a little breathlessly.

Nick opened his mouth to speak once more when a far off sound stopped them both. From an open window they had just passed came far off howls and cries. It carried on the small wind there was and wafted right by them. Toria's eyelids flickered as she turned around, taking off again.

'Do try and be careful this year, won't you Miss Enouire.'

Toria still didn't look at the ghost, even though his voice had now turned quite serious.

'The other ghosts and I have been hearing the most disturbing things.'

Toria didn't bother disguising her sigh of relief when she had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. She quickly said the password and gripped the frame of the portrait as it swung open, finally looking up at Nick.

'Thank you, Nick,' she said, still smiling, as one would smile to a small child who has just informed her that a spiders could be painful. 'I promise that I will be nothing but cautious. Good night.'

Her smile slid from her face as she climbed through the portrait hole and saw who it was that met her.

Remus stood with his arms folded across his chest and a scowl which grew deeper as the flickering light from the fire kept throwing it in and out of focus. Toria pursed her lips once more and moved over to the lounge, keeping her head down.

'I would have thought that you could have at least stayed in here for one night before picking up on old habits,' Remus said, dropping into an armchair.

'No one saw me, Remus.'

'That's not the point and you know it, Toria.'

She scowled, looking into the flames.

Something fell into her lap, she looked down to see that days Prophet, a picture of the Dark Mark glowering up at her. There was no trace of her previous amusement as she looked up at Remus.

'My taking a walk has nothing to do with this, Remus.' She snapped, grabbing the paper with white-knuckled hands and throwing it back at him. He caught it without moving his eyes hers.

'That's bullshit and you know it!'

She bit her lip and looked back into the fire.

'Look, I just want you to be safe.'

'I know what you want, Remus, and I know that you mean well, but please, trust me.' she looked over at him at the words she was about to say died in her throat.

Remus shuffled in his seat under her gaze, he rubbed his forehead and looked at the paper in his hands.

'The full moon is tomorrow night,' he mumbled after a few more moments under her stare.

She frowned, suddenly remembering something. 'But-?'

'Look Toria,' Remus said, standing from the armchair, dropping the paper into the seat. 'It's our first night back, I'd rather we not start the year on a sour note. And if you won't be careful for your own safety then do it for my sanity. I'm not the only one patrolling the halls at night, Lily is out there too, and now James is as well. I don't want to have to lie to them anymore than I already do.' With that he left the room, climbing the stairs to his dormitory.

She heard a door close and she rose off the lounge and walked over to one of the windows that overlooked the school grounds. She opened unlatched the window and pushed it open, the midnight breeze instantly cooling her face. As she looked out over the grounds, over the Quidditch stadium in the distance and the darkness of the forest that circled all around, the distant howls and cries rung in her ears.

She had thought that she knew what was making those sounds but as she stood there watching the forest, her forehead became pinched. She glanced upwards to where she imagined Remus' room would be. She looked back out through the window.

What the hell was out there?

XXXXX

Toria couldn't believe how Lily seemed to outdo herself in over eagerness year after year. Toria shook her head as she sat in the Great Hall for the first breakfast of the year reading a discarded copy of the Daily Prophet. Across the table Lily was telling a small first year all about the different classes. The eleven year-old, whose wide eyes peered up at the Head Girl, had her mouth hanging slightly and was nodding her head from time to time. Lily was just starting to go through the Professors when the Marauders sat down at the table next to Toria.

The boys greeted Toria and Lily as they took their seats, their greetings going completely unnoticed by Lily. Remus, who had taken the empty space next to Toria, leaned in.

'How long has she been speaking like that?'

'Like what?' Toria looked over to the red head on the other side of the table, Lily seemed completely unaware that her boyfriend now sat next to her.

'Faster than the speed of sound.'

To this Toria rolled her eyes to Remus and turned her focus to Lily. 'Lily!'

Lily's head snapped around to face Toria's, her brow furrowed. 'What?

'Breakfast is almost over,' Toria said to the first year. 'Maybe you should go find someone you can walk to class with.'

The first year let out a deep breath, grinned and went off in search of a fellow first year further down the table. After she was out of ear shot, Lily snapped.

'What did you do that for?'

'Lily, if you don't calm down you're going to give every eleven year old here a heart-attack.' Toria's matter of fact tone received a good amount of chuckling from the boys around them.

Lily opened her mouth to retort but a voice from behind them interjected.

'Sorry to interrupt what I'm sure is an extremely stimulating and informative conversation but these may prove useful in the coming months,' a low sneering voice floated down to them and the small trace of a smirk that Toria had been entertaining dropped.

'Thank you, Professor,' Lily said, standing up to take her schedule from Professor Antone. The others followed her lead until Toria was the only one left.

Toria took a hidden, deep breath before turning to face the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. She had to raise her head in order to meet his stare, his steely eyes bored into hers. She held his stare for a moment and narrowed her eyes when he looked down at her timetable.

'I see that you have decided to continue on with Defence Against the Dark Arts, Miss Enouire.' Professor Antone's eyes slid from the piece of parchment back to her. 'I hope you find it,' he passed for a fraction of a second before deciding on the right word, 'fruitful.' He handed her timetable to her, his features pulled into a small, tight-lipped sneer, before continuing on along the table.

Toria scanned her timetable before looking up to the others. She was met with five sets of eyes. She quickly looked back to her timetable. Lily was the first to break the silence.

'I will never understand the overt animosity you two seem to have for each other,' she said matter-of-factly. 'I mean, honestly, Toria, he's a teacher.' She shook her head.

'Well I say good on her!' came James' voice from across the table. 'Everyone knows there's something not right about Antone, I bet he was a Slytherin when he was here.'

Lily shook her head again. 'James!' She hissed. 'You can't say things like that, you're Head Boy!'

'I'm only saying what everyone else is thinking.'

'Well I heard that he didn't even go to Hogwarts,' Peter leaned forwards, lowering his voice as he looked around to each of them. 'I heard that he went to Durmstrang, you know, that school in Bulgaria? The one that's supposedly really into the Dark Arts!'

James snorted. 'Well I can't say that it'd came as a surprise if it were true.'

Toria, seeing where the conversation was going, and noticing the darkened expression that had taken over the features of James and Sirius, she leant over Remus' shoulder.

'You're really taking Divination?' She supressed a snort. 'And what, exactly, are you hoping to gain from that class? The easiest way to scam someone?'

Remus rolled his eyes, pocketing his schedule. 'For your information, I'm taking it because I'm interested in how different people interpret stimuli,' he said evenly all whilst giving her a look that plainly said you know why I'm taking it.

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes

The others had finished their speculating and had caught the end of their conversation. Sirius snorted as he smeared some butter onto his piece of toast.

'Sure that's the reason, Remus.' He took a bite and looked across the table to Toria. 'What he meant to say was that he thought he could do with the extra sleep.'

Everyone, bar Lily, laughed at this.

'Nah that's not it,' James chuckled, 'he's really into all that stuff, honestly,' he defended as the other Sirius and Peter jokingly protested. 'He wants to know how to use his Inner Eye to see the future,' James said in an airy kind of voice.

'Well if that's what you want I can teach you more than that dodgy old Professor ever could,' Toria said. The chuckling of the boys died a little and Toria looked up at them all for a second before her smirk grew and she spoke in the same airy voice had adopted before. 'See, I knew they were going to react like that,' her voice became loftier, 'you need to focus your inner eye, my boy! Look beyond!'

No one noticed as Toria loosened a breath when her show was met with laughter, but she did notice Remus scowl and her smile became a little tighter.

XXXX

'You shouldn't have said that to him.'

'I didn't mean to say it,' she said, not looking up from the thick volume she had lying open in front of her on the table. 'It just slipped out.'

'You'd think that after all this time, things like that wouldn't just slip out.'

This time she looked up, glaring at him from over her quill, which was no longer moving. Her glare was met with Remus' raised eyebrow, looking expectantly across to her. After a moment, Toria simply rolled her eyes, returning back to her essay.

'Look,' she leaned in a bit closer, dropping her voice, as a group of second years passed their table. Once they had disappeared behind a book shelf, she continued. 'He'll only make a big deal out of it, if we make a big deal out of it. If we just pretend that it is was nothing then he won't even notice.'

'You're forgetting something, Sirius was there as well.'

'So?'

'So, apart they're curious, together they're mutual curiosity has a tendency to turn into full scale obsession.'

Toria scoffed at this. Dropping her quill onto her half-finished essay, she leant back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest.

'A tendency that's clearly catching.'

Remus opened his mouth but she was quicker.

'Remus, you're not listening to me! To us it was a slip up, to everyone else, it was a joke.' She picked up her quill once more. 'Now please, just let it go.' She turned back to her essay and had only scribbled down a couple of words before she mumbled, 'Besides, I doubt your friends listen to anything I say, anyway.'

All Remus could do was continue to glare, if only she were right.

Despite her assurances to the contrary, Remus wasn't able to head Toria's words and couldn't ignore the dead weight that had settled itself firmly in the pit of his stomach. A feeling that only grew stronger as he climbed through the portrait hole of the Gryffindor Common Room and saw the three boys sitting around the fire.

He hadn't expected Toria to take his concerns seriously, she never did when it came to matters concerning her. He frowned when he remembered the remark she had made when he had said this to her.

'Why do I need to worry when you do all that for me?'

She didn't understand. If she had any sense than she would be worried and scared. Realisation crept up on him, like a warming sun, and all he could do was make way for the small, bewildered smile that pushed it's way onto his face.

'Ah, there he is!' James stretched his arms out over the back of the lounge as Remus took to one of the armchairs closest to the fire. 'Where were you?'

Remus was about to answer when another voice spoke up. 'James, when will you ever learn?' Remus looked up to see Sirius in the armchair opposite, he was staring openly at Remus as he spoke to James. 'Any time he isn't with us, he's with Toria.'

There was something about Sirius' impassive stare that held Remus' attention even as James went on loudly in the background.

'Ah of course, I knew that.'

'Then why'd you ask?'

'To fill the silence, Peter, obviously.'

'If you say so.'

James and Peter's bickering faded quickly into the other noises that filled the Common Room as Sirius and Remus continued to stare at each other.

Remus didn't know what Sirius was trying to get across with his staring but Remus' uneasy feeling grew. Remus wasn't blind to the fact that Sirius had always been a rather curious person and that he had always been rather curious about Toria, however quietly he might go about it, it was there.

Remus was sure that Sirius, like many others, had heard the rumours about what had happened in Toria's past and he was sure that Sirius had noticed how he and Toria would always arrive and leave Platform Nine and Three Quarters together with Remus' parents.

As Remus looked away from Sirius and stared into the fire he felt himself go slightly pale. Ever since getting on board the Hogwarts Express for the final time, Remus had had a heavy feeling in his gut, and it had only grown since then, and he dreaded to think what would happen to make it grow further.

So I'm sorry if this feels like a lot of drabbles all mashed up in one chapter and I'm sorry if it seems a little vague, if so please let me know what you think. I really only have the middle to end of this story mapped out, I'm kind of winging the beginning.

Thank you so so much to everyone who commented on the first chapter but I think it's only fair to warn all of you reading this story that I have a personal rule that I don't post the next chapter if the number of reviews I have aren't more than the number of chapters in the story thus far. Just food for thought :P

Let me know what you think and thanks for reading :)