The third time around she was used to the icy feeling, the blackness that surrounded her. And then she found herself in a familiar room with a clear blue ceiling.

This was her parent's bedroom, just upstairs of where she had begun her expedition. This one she knew. The only difference was that some of the fabrics were different, newer, though she'd never seen them.

Scanning everything to catalogue the differences, Halley found the couple once again lying in the middle of a large bed. This time, however, her mother was sporting a rather large belly.

"We could go the way of two traditions," Draco mused, running his knuckles over the swell. "Maybe that'll be an Orion or Regulus. We could honour your father, even,"

"I don't think any of the ones who've come before us would appreciate our 'defiling' their names that way. Unless we went with those who were blasted off the tree – considering I don't even appear that could work."

"So that would be… Isla, Alphard, the second Phineus,"

"But what would Phineus Nigellus think?" she affected a tone of outrage. Chuckling, he continued.

"Marius isn't too bad. Or Cedrella?"

"And Dad, of course. Although, I'd have to say, as much as I hate to admit it, my favourite name was taken by a woman who, if she were ever released from prison, ought to be thrown into an asylum."

"Ah, Aunt Bellatrix. Yes, she was very fortunate wasn't she?"

"What if we tried a variation of either of ours?"

"You mean forgo the actual celestial name and have a Dragon? Or little Eagle? Sounds a little too Native American to me. Oh, but what about this? Rather than picking a specific star, if it were a girl, we could just name her Starr! Two r's,"

Halley, sitting in the corner, cringed. If her parents had done that, she would have moved in with Uncle Harry and demanded he change her name.

"That's very tacky. What about Soleil? It's French for sun. Or maybe the Spanish for moon,"

"Name a kid after Looney Lovegood? I don't think so."

"Don't call her that! She's lovely."

"She's mad! So's her father." Halley couldn't help but laugh at this exchange. They were both right of course. Luna was quite odd, but she was very nice as well. And Soleil wasn't all that bad…

"Moving on." Aquila decided. "What's your next suggestion?"

"Crucis?"

"NO!" Halley roared, but thankfully her mother vetoed that for her.

"Too similar to 'crucio,'"

"How about," he paused for a moment, building suspense as he rubbed his chin, "Scorpius Hyperion?"

"Scorpius? Hmm, that could work."

"It's not bad, is it?"

"Did you just think of it?"

"No, I came up with it a while ago, but I forgot. We should probably think up a few more options though, in case whatever comes out of there doesn't look like a Scorpius, or, you know, if it's a girl."

"Do you remember my twenty-first birthday?" Aquila asked, throwing off both her husband and daughter.

"Of course. What about it?"

"Have we explored comets?" Halley grinned, realising where she was heading, even if her father was still confused.

"Aren't they all named something like C1674? Do you really want to subject a child to that?"

"I'm sure some of them are named for the Muggles who discovered them."

"That's right, I remember some now. Let's see, there was… Borrelly, Donati, Shoemaker/Levy's good. Or how about this, 'we'd like you to meet out daughter Miss Mitchell Malfoy,' has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Oh!" Aquila grabbed a cushion and whacked him with it, Halley, in the corner was giggling to herself. "Fine then, you can have this simple task all to yourself if you're going to be that way."

"Actually, you might be on to something there," Draco replied, sitting up, holding the cushion beside himself, preventing her from attacking him with it again.

"Don't patronise me,"

"No, really. Comets. Maybe… Yes! What about Halley? Halley's comet, it orbits about every seventy years I think."

"Halley Malfoy. I like that."

"Excellent! Is that it then? We've got one of each, and as long as you're sure you're only hiding one in there, that should be all we need, right?"

"For now." Aquila replied, smirking, "I think we're done, yes. Now you can go and make us some breakfast."

"Good, I'm starved!" Draco announced, stretching as he stood beside the bed.

"No, no," Aquila replied, standing as well. "Not you and I 'us', the baby and me. We need to eat far more urgently than you do. So go on, get cooking."

Halley, still sitting in the arm chair in the corner, giggled to herself as her parents bickering voices faded down the hall, and the room dissolved around her.

As soon as she was through the portal that was the Pensieve for the fourth time, Halley knew exactly where she had ended up.

Platform Nine and Three Quarters in her parents' day looked just as it did when she'd first seen it, and every time afterwards. There were people rushing around in all directions, calling out to friends and trying to get away from their parents.

It didn't take long at all to locate either of her parents, but it was bizarre to be seeing them now. They were younger than she was, she was certain of it. Which meant…

"This is the first time they ever met,"

Her father looked just as sure of himself as ever, even at the age of eleven, as he strode away from his mother after allowing her to peck him on the cheek. He made his way towards the big red steam engine that carried the students to Hogsmeade station without so much as glancing back.

Finding her mother wasn't hard either. She stood with a cluster of people, among them her grandfather, Sirius, and her uncle Harry Potter.

Sirius didn't look at all pleased to be there, which Halley put down to the fact that he had met his wife at Hogwarts and she had been murdered shortly after the birth of their daughter. But he couldn't very well deny his daughter from going, no matter how it worried him to let her.

Edging closer to the group she noticed that Harry's parents were the ones doing all of the usual parental things, reminding both children of things they needed to know and checking they had everything, while her grandfather simply stood off to the side, looking sullen.

The whistle blew and Harry's mother looked up anxiously. "It's time then," Lily announced, placing an arm around her son's shoulders. "You'd better hurry on board."

Aquila grabbed Harry's hand, but didn't drag him off right away. She allowed him one last moment to look at his parents, who were both smiling encouragingly. She however, kept her eyes averted from her own father.

"Good luck son," James Potter said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Owl us as soon as you can,"

"I will." Harry replied, and then they were off.

Halley followed quickly, jumping on board the train just as it began to move out of the station. She followed her mother and the boy she'd always thought of as her uncle, through the compartments, until they came to a near empty one.

Three boys sat around, taking up most of the space, but if they were to sit properly, there would be room enough for at least another four.

"Do you mind if we sit here?" Aquila asked as Harry hung back behind her.

"Depends," drawled a blonde boy. "What's your blood status?"

"I highly doubt that's of anyone's concern."

"It concerns me. So come on, let's hear it."

"Well if you must know, I'm a pure-blood. My father is a member of the ancient and so-called 'noble' house of Black."

"Ah, well, if you're referring to them that way that would make him Sirius. The Muggle-loving filth,"

"My father," Aquila replied, over the top of his comment, "is a wonderful man. An equal opportunist,"

"Yes, well, each to his own. And him?"

"He's-"

"I don't want to sit here with you." Harry cut in. "I'd rather find somewhere else. Come on, Ak, let's go." He turned and left, Aquila looked after him for a moment before following, leaving the compartment door open.

As they walked along the hallway, Halley, torn between following or staying to observe her father further, she distinctively heard him mutter, "It's a good thing that certain limbs of the tree can be trimmed. Hopefully her father's line can end with her and then any other bad seeds should just die out so-

Halley found herself in her father's office again, horrified. She was pretty certain by that point that all the memories she had witnessed were his, she just hoped that her mother hadn't heard him say that last part.

"I wonder how long it took him to reveal the relation?" she questioned aloud. He wouldn't have done it that day even though his old lackeys Crabbe and Goyle probably wouldn't have batted a heavy eyelid, but that boy on the train would have preferred to keep it hidden for as long as possible that he was related to a Gryffindor, she was sure.

The next bottle she chose because of its shape. It wasn't like the rest of them, and she wondered why she hadn't noticed it earlier. But as she carried it to the Pensieve, she knew that it would be something important.

Why else use a unique bottle?

After the now familiar icy blackness, Halley found herself surrounded by fog. Far off voices reached her ears, but she couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. Then she was standing at the bottom of the staircase in the entrance to her family's home.

Her parents stood a few feet away, staring at each other in a way that she was sure the couples in the earlier memories wouldn't have dreamt of. Then after what felt like a hundred years her mother finally spoke.

"You swore." She told him. "You swore to me that you would always be loyal to us, to our family. But that's not what you're doing now, is it?"

"You still don't seem to understand. That's exactly what I'm doing. How can you not see that?"

"I can't do this. I can't!" she turned on her heel and stormed out the front door.

As Halley watched her father stomp towards his study, she heard a tiny sound from behind her and turned to see herself, sitting at the top of the stairs, she was nearly thirteen years old and she was crying.

Suddenly the entire scene disappeared, but rather than return to her own time, Halley was once again engulfed in fog and then watched it clear, before the voices of her father and uncle cut through.

"We may never have gotten on, Draco, but I'd like to think that over the last few years, we've been able to put our differences aside for the most part. And for Aquila's sake I-"

"Since you're in my house Potter," her father interrupted, "I'll thank you not to talk to me like I'm one of your children."

"I know she wants to come home." Harry continued. "She misses you, and Hal's crying every night, asking why she can't see you. But she won't. Not while you-"

"I've heard enough." Draco interrupted again. "You can go now."

"If you do this, if you just give up now, that'll be it. There will be no more chances; no way that she will ever come back to you. And you can bet your entire vault at Gringotts that she'll keep Halley away as well."

Halley was relieved to know that hadn't happened. Whatever else had gone on between her parents, her mother had reneged on that one threat at least.

"Winkle can show you out. Unless you're able to make it across the room on your own?" Draco sneered, and for the first time Halley noticed the House-Elf she had grown up with hovering in a doorway that lead to the kitchen.

Looking angrier than she had ever seen him in her entire life, Harry sent one more glare towards Draco and then walked out the front door. Halley watched her father walk into his office and slam the door before she felt a hand land on her shoulder.

She had to get busted right? You can't go into someone else's thoughts in the Pensieve and not get busted, right? So what did we think? Wanna leave me a review?