A/n: Special thanks to AlsoKnownAsMatt for your review. Thank you for your words, as I wasn't too sure how I was doing with my characterization and descriptions. Wasn't sure if I was being descriptive enough. I'm glad that you've liked the style thus far and I hope I can keep it up. :)

Prompt: Throw a Fit (#180)

"Who knows how long, I've been awake now?
The shadows on my wall don't sleep,
They keep calling me, beckoning...
Who knows what's right?
The line keeps getting thinner."

-Imagine Dragons, Nothing Left

She didn't notice when he came in the following morning. Her back stood to the door as she studied the tapestry before her, her eyes locked to a pair of names in particular.

She'd never before been in the drawing room before. Thus far, they'd mostly spent days decontaminating bedrooms, the kitchen, the halls... apart from those rooms the only other place she had seen was the library on the first floor. Though, she hadn't gotten the opportunity to go through it at her leisure, as Lupin had spotted her and in no uncertain terms, though in his own polite way, made it clear that the library was off limits. A sentiment her godfather shared, and she hadn't yet had the opportunity to go back, not when Mrs. Weasley was dominating all their time with menial tasks and Severus giving back all her homework essays for revising as they didn't quite meet his standards yet.

Staring unblinkingly, her fingers reached out to touch the name Lestrange as her heart seemed to thud slowly, but insistently against her ribcage. Tracey ignored the discomfort she felt and merely continued to lightly trace the name she'd only heard before.

It was strange somehow, to see the name written on an old family tree. Somehow it like an abstract thought that suddenly found it's link to reality, cementing in her the knowledge that Lestrange was more than a surname that was nearly fading out of the wizarding world, it's only living carriers by blood, both locked away and serving life sentences in Azkaban. That the name was more than two faded of photographs of Death Eaters from old articles. That it in fact lived in two individuals who represented all that was left of an old family.

"Tracey, dear," someone called, breaking her thoughts.

Turning slowly away from the tapestry, retracting her finger with a sense of loss, she slowly looked to who was addressing her. From where she stood, she spotted Mrs. Weasley with her hand on Potter's slender shoulder.

"Yes?" Tracey asked, her gaze moving from the Weasley matriarch to the boy with vivid green eyes now staring at her. She wasn't sure why, but she'd never really noticed just how emerald green Potter's eyes were. Perhaps it was because of his floppy dark hair, or the ugly glasses he wore somehow worked to obscure them in the way they could not hope to do with the lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

"You didn't get the chance last night to be introduced. This is Harry," he stated, moving her hand momentarily on Harry's shoulder, perhaps leaving his surname off in a way to side-step his fame somehow, "he will be staying with us as you might be aware. Harry, this is Tracey Davis, Professor Snape's goddaughter who will also be staying with us."

Tracey watched with slight boredom as Potter's eyes widened comically and his mouth opened like a fish out of water. Tracey surmised rather coolly, that Potter had not been informed of her before.

"Potter," Tracey merely stated, before turning away. If she was rude, she didn't find she particularly cared. She supposed in his case, despite her curiosity, she really must do as her godfather bid of her.

If Potter was troubled by this, he made no outward manifestation. However, she did overheard him, despite the various noises in the room, hissing questions at the others.

"She's really not so bad, Harry. A bit rough around the edges, but... you have to give her a chance," Hermione stated in reconciling tones. If Tracey was surprised by this, she found it really made no difference. While she had attempted to be better with Granger than with the others, and while the had found some common ground where it came to their study ethics, she found that the Gryffindors' opinions on her mattered very little. In a few weeks time, she'd ben gone from Grimmauld and it was better for her if they pretended she didn't exist when they returned to school.

~X~

If Harry hadn't known any better, he would have hardly been aware that Tracey Davis was inhabiting Grimmauld, or that she was a Slytherin. His first few days at headquarters, he only barely noticed the Slytherin girl, as she seemed to keep quiet a lot and kept to herself. From observation, Harry somehow knew that the girl didn't keep to herself because she was shy, as the few times she did speak it was in a confident, but very bored tone.

Despite Tracey Davis not being openly antagonistic, or regarding them in any form with the arrogant superiority that seemed typical of her house, Harry still did not trust her. The fact that she seemed to try so very little to ingratiate herself with anyone in Grimmauld, furthered his opinion in believing that simply because she didn't strut about the place making pompous comments like Malfoy, did not make her someone trust-worthy.

However, it wasn't until a confrontation the Slytherin girl had with Sirius, that Harry finally looked at her like she was might be her own individual person, and not a manifestation of the snake emblem on the Slytherin crest.

They'd been working on the dining room on the ground floor, and once more Kreacher had been attempting to remove items that had been placed in rubbish sacks while muttering his usual offensive monologues when Sirius had finally gotten enough and threatened to present Kreacher with clothes.

"Master must do as Master wishes," Kreacher muttered, looking up at Sirius with tears welling in his large eyes. The hurt and loathing shining brightly like glistening pools. "But Master will not turn Kreacher away, no, because Kreacher knows what they are up to, oh yes, he is plotting against the Dark Lord, yes, with these Mudbloods and traitors and scum..."

Everyone watched with varying degrees of discomfort, except for Ron and the twins who seemed rather amused, as Sirius suddenly shot forward and seized Kreacher by the back of his loin cloth and used it to rip him high into the air.

"You mustn't... he doesn't know what he is saying," Hermione's raised over the squeaks from Kreacher, trying to appease Sirius and dropping the object she was handling as she tried to move forward. However, it was too late. Sirius had already thrown the small, elf body from the room and slammed the door shut behind him, causing the room to lapse into silence.

Harry felt distinctly uncomfortable as he looked away from Sirius, who was looking particularly satisfied, and Hermione who was pale and looking simultaneously distressed and disapproving.

After encounters with Dobby in his second year, he knew how irritating dealing with a House-elf could be, and Kreacher was especially trying when considering the awful things he muttered, but Harry wasn't sure he was comfortable with Sirius' treatment towards Kreacher. In a way, he knew it wasn't really Kreacher's fault that he said those things. But at the same time, Sirius was his godfather and he was having a tough go of it, being locked away in a home he detested while being unable to do anything he felt would be useful.

"You're really foul excuse for a human being," a sultry voice spoke, laced with such disgust that Harry found himself startled. Snapping his eyes up, he looked just in time to watch a small body crash into Sirius, clenched fists banging on his chest as she shoved at him and hit him with all her might; her straight, dark-auburn hair which fell in layers just past her shoulders flailing about her wildly as she did so.

"He's a house-elf, it's in their nature to serve. Taking care of their masters is what they live for. It was makes them happy. It's not his fault your family corrupted him with that pureblood tripe and it doesn't give you the right to treat him like he's a toerag," she screeched as she continued to bang on his chest, while everyone watched completely stunned as the quiet, Slytherin girl completely lost it.

Down the hall, they could hear the screams from the portrait of Sirius' mother, added to the uproar.

"Gerrof me you lunatic," Sirius yelled, as he finally caught Tracey's small wrists in his larger hands and clenched at them tightly in his attempt to stop her. But even this was not enough to stop the enraged Slytherin girl as she continued to try and hit Sirius, pulling and tugging at her caught wrists.

"You're a piece of-" however, whatever she was saying was cut off as Harry found himself wrapping his arms around the small waist of the girl and lifting her away from his godfather. Harry wasn't even sure when he'd moved over to help, but only knew that he had been somewhat concerned for her bony little wrists being clenched so tightly by Sirius.

"Get off me!" Tracey shrieked as Harry lifted her off the ground, noting for a second that the top of her head barely seemed to reach his chin. "He deserves it; foul, loathsome, git that he is!"

Even as Tracey continued to kick, it was no use. Years of Quidditch had undoubtedly made Harry quite strong, despite his deceptively slender appearance. With his arms wrapped tightly around her center and lifting her off the ground, Harry was almost sure that he could feel the girl's heart beating rapidly like the wings of a snitch through his forearms.

"Get off!" Tracey screeched, banging her head back and narrowly missing Harry's face as he moved his head to the side, so that her head connected with his neck and shoulder.

"I'll let go, if you calm down," Harry muttered through gritted teeth, even as the soft strands of her hair tickled the exposed skin of his neck and cheek.

But Tracey was either not in the mood to be pacified, or too caught in her anger to even be able to hear reason. "I said get off!" she screeched, aiming a well placed elbow to Harry's rib. An "oof" was pulled form his lips, and yet Harry's arms did not relinquish their hold on the girl's small waist.

"What is going on here?" Mrs. Weasley shouted when she came in, causing everyone in the vicinity to stop and turn to look at her.

"Ouch!" Harry yelled, caught off guard by the sudden stomping on his foot. Letting go of the slender girl, he hopped on a foot as he attempted to grab a hold of his now throbbing one.

"Don't touch me, Potter," Tracey huffed, pausing a second between each word as she struggled to contain her breathing; her jade-green eyes flashing dangerously at him even as a flush crawled over her cheeks. Harry stared at her bewildered for a moment, still holding his aching foot, but before he could think of anything to say she had whirled around so quickly that her hair had fanned out behind her and was billowing after her as she marched form the room, not looking or saying a word to anyone in the room, and only narrowly missing pushing Mrs. Weasley in her attempted to escape.

"Well Hermione, I think you've just found someone to else to join spew," Ron muttered. "Though, she's completely mental."

If Harry had been confused before about the Slytherin girl, the events of that afternoon had further perplexed him. Taking into consideration her very cold regard towards everything and everyone, her sudden burst of anger and violence had been completely unexpected. Even hours later, as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, he couldn't make head or tails of it.

After everything he had gleaned in the past four years at Hogwarts, the idea that a Slytherin would be so outraged on the part of a House-elf, simply seemed too much of a paradox. A paradox of such monumental proportions that it's very existence seemed to threaten the fabric of reality; Harry was quite sure that what he'd witnessed that afternoon was tantamount to a sign of the apocalypse.

Turning on his side, Harry closed his eyes and tried to brush thoughts of the short, Slytherin girl from his mind. But before the blackness of sleep claimed him, he felt a distinct clenching in his stomach at the thought that perhaps the Slytherin girl had acted more nobly than all the Gryffindors in the room put together.

When Harry awoke the following morning and trouped down to the kitchen for some breakfast, it was to the sound of more bellowing. Rushing down the stone stairwell, he burst through the kitchen door even as his heart clenched. He knew that voice, and he knew that hearing it at such booming levels was anything but good.

Bursting through the door, his eyes took quick inventory of the kitchen. Seated at the table, watching with wide eyes and pale faces were Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. Mrs. Weasley was attempting to wedge herself between and reason with Sirius and, much to his consternation and horror, with Snape.

"Are you such a coward that you feel a man, bullying a fifteen-year-old girl-" Snape was shouting, his teeth gnashing unpleasantly.

"Perhaps if she didn't behave like a wild animal-" Sirius was spitting back only to have a wand shoved further into his throat.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, though he was mostly ignored by the grown-ups as he made his way and moved closer to his friends.

"Will you two stop?" Mrs. Weasley shouted, rather ineffectively as she was ignored by both men who were too incensed to hear and too preoccupied with snarling threats and insults in each other's faces to even care.

"Mum informed Snape about what happened with Davis yesterday," Ron responded, his voice only barely audible over the angry, raised voices.

"I think Professor Snape must've come to see Tracey early, and I think he noticed the bruises," Hermione informed, her brows contracted with some concern.

"What bruises?" Harry asked, alarmed as his heart jumped with his sudden unease.

"Oh her wrists. Though, I wouldn't put it past her to have bruised herself on purpose," Ginny muttered darkly. Harry frowned at this, wondering when she'd bruised, but then recalled that after the incident in the dinning room, that the Slytherin girl had retreated to her room and refused to come out again for the remainder of the day and evening.

"Ginny, why would she do that? And if she had, she wouldn't be trying to stop them," Hermione retorted in mild exasperation and horror that Ginny would think such a thing. Ginny merely shrugged in response.

"What?" Harry asked, turning around to stare at the adults once more. It was only then that he realized that Tracey was there as well. That because of her short height and slender physique, he hadn't seen her because she was hidden by the bulk of Mrs. Weasley and Snape. However, he he looked around Mrs. Weasley he could just see the Slytherin girl looking up at Snape with a mild look of strain on her face as her hands attempted to tug on his wand-arm.

"You're overreacting. You know I bruise like a peach," he heard Tracey saying, though he had to strain his ears to hear. However, Harry was too perplexed at the idea of anyone touching Snape, much less a student, to think about the fact that she was actually trying to diffuse the situation.

As if his staring at her in bewilderment had triggered an extra sense the girl had, her large, jade-green eyes snapped up and met his through the miniscule gap between Mrs. Weasley and Sirius. Harry could see a quick thought flitting behind her eyes before she opened her mouth.

"Harry! Help me!" she cried suddenly, causing Snape to suddenly stiffen and Harry to jump forward a bit clumsily, though why he did so he was unsure. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear a voice that sounded suspiciously like Hermione, telling him that it was his hero-complex acting up; that he simply couldn't resist trying to help others, no matter who they were.

"Never lay your hands again on my goddaughter again, Black, because there will be nothing and no one that will stop me from dealing swift and unpleasant retribution," Snape threatened one last time before shoving Sirius very hard, away from him. Before Sirius could react Snape had whirled around, caught Tracey by the hand and dragged her out of the kitchen.

Harry stopped in his tracks, his head feeling like someone had just slammed a crystal ball over his head. "What just happened?" Harry asked, completely befuddled in the wake of the sudden lack of commotion while Mrs. Weasley lay into Sirius.

Harry didn't see Tracey again until lunch when she waltzed back into the dining room as if nothing had happened. Sirius, after a scolding from Mrs. Weasley, had long retreated into Buckbeaks room and had not come out since the morning. Lupin was actually up there with him, trying to get him to come out of his sulking.

Edging his way closer to Tracey, and hoping to go unnoticed (though, if her stiffening was anything to go by he'd been unsuccessful) Harry peered at her wrists and found himself frowning. Tracey was wearing a set of charcoal-grey summer robes with short sleeves and the hem of which only came down to her knees; different from her everyday wear in that they were not black as most of what he'd seen her wear seemed to be.

They left her wrists bare, but for the wand holster attached to her right wrist and the jet-black, ebony wand strapped there . However, even through the black leather of the holster, the hand-shaped bruises were very visibly. They were a light purple color that contrasted starkly against her very pale skin and had his stomach tightening in discomfort and his face scrunching up in concern and anxiety.

"Was he really holding you that hard?" Harry asked, thinking that he might be sick as he tried to recall the altercation of the previous day. While he had been concerned at the time that Sirius' hold might be too rough, he hadn't put too much thought to it after. A flash of Sirius' knuckles burned white as they clasped around her wrists, which seemed slender and tiny even without large, adult-male, hands wrapped around them, taunted his mind.

Tracey shifted for a moment away from him. "I bruise easily, as you may have heard. It might be a simple iron deficiency or something," Tracey said with a shrug of her shoulder, her tone as unconcerned as it always was.

Harry wasn't sure if that was the truth, or Tracey Davis way of trying to alleviate his remorse, but Harry didn't feel any better for hearing it. As if sensing where his thoughts were going, Tracey turned sharply towards him and met his gaze unflinchingly.

"I don't want or need your pity, Potter. Or anyone else's for that matter, so don't concern yourself with me," Tracey stated coolly before making to walk off.

"Why did you ask me?" he asked, stopping her in her tracks. Turning around, she raised a sleek brow over her large, doe-like eyes; distantly Harry thought that their wide-innocent shape, made them a contradiction to the hollow expression contained in their pale-green depths. "To help this morning."

Tracey merely stared at him for a few seconds, as if weighing her options. Ultimately she seemed to decide that answering him now might save her the trouble later as she opened to bow of her perfectly-shaped, petal-pink lips to respond.

"Calling you familiarly and asking you for help was the only way to distract Professor Snape enough to get him away from Black," Tracey replied simply and in deadpan, before turning away and swiftly walking away form him, signifying the end of that conversation.

Harry raised a hand and scratched the back of his head, still slightly at a loss as to why that would work. However, as he looked away, mindful of Hermione's contemplative gaze on him, he tried not to think about it too much. Somehow he felt trying to figure out the workings of a Slytherin girl's mind might make his brain combust.

TBC...