Lizzie had been waiting in her uncle Albus' office for a long time since dinner. Something was going on, but far be it from the girl to know what. No one had said. All she knew was something was causing Gryffindor students not to be able to get to their dormitory. And so Lizzie sat on the couch by the fireplace, wondering what had happened.

"Aha, the little girl. Treating you like a child are they?"

Lizzie looked up. Peeves, the poltergeist of the school, was floating above her head. His face was adorned with a mischievous grin. Lizzie looked his in the eye, saying, "Of course they are. It's preposterous. I score higher in intelligence tests than most of the professors."

"But you are a child."

"I should be treated for my brain age, not my size."

Peeves turned himself upside down in the air, folding his arms. "I'm inclined to agree, young miss. How about we go hunting for the missing Fat Lady, shall we?"

Lizzie hadn't known it was about the Fat Lady obviously, so as they walked (well, she walked, he floated) Lizzie pumped the specter for answers. Apparently the students had arrived form dinner to find her portrait slashed to ribbons and the Fat Lady gone. Now there was not a teacher in the school that wasn't attempting to find her. The word was that it was Sirius Black trying to get inside.

"Sirius Black?"

"That murderer on the loose from Azkaban didn't you know?"

"Apparently there is quite a lot I didn't know."

They were on the fourth floor. Out of the corner of Lizzie eye, something moved. She spun her head to the right, trying to catch it. Whatever it was was gone. But it seemed like there was a sound moving ahead of them along the corridor wall. Lizzie ran long, trying to catch up. The sound was closer; now it seemed like it was sobbing. But it was quiet considering the stone that surrounded them, suggesting there should be an echo. Lizzie almost passed by the sound. Once she realized she had she doubled back and found herself in front of a bedroom portrait and hiding behind the bed curtain in the enormous painting was the Fat Lady.

Lizzie turned around; Peeves was still there. "Go get my uncle. Hurry!"

The child stayed with the guardian while Peeves was gone. She whimpered about Sirius Black and cried some more. When Peeves returned it was with Minerva, Albus, and Remus in tow. Minerva and Albus remained to try and coax the Fat Lady into an empty portrait for her to move to temporarily. Remus, however took his daughter to their quarters and sat her down on top of the desk in his office, and spoke very frankly with her.

"What did Peeves tell you?"

"That Sirius Black attacked her." But Lizzie, usually a poignant child, continued. "You lied to me. When I flipped through your old picture albums and asked you what had happened to Sirius, you said he had died when Peter and James did. You never said that he was in prison and you never said that he was a murderer. Who did he kill? And I would appreciate a truthful answer."

One hand on either side of his daughter's legs dangling off the edge of the desk, Remus hung his head a moment and took a deep breath. It was hard sometimes, to remind himself that his daughter however young was endowed with a brain most adults would covet. She was a child and as such he tried to protect her from the nasty parts of the world. It had escaped him in regard to his former friend that he would not be able to hide him from her, no matter how much Minerva, Albus, and himself had tried to shield her, it would have come out eventually. Lizzie wasn't stupid. If she had her heart on something she would find a way to find out the answers to the questions, with or without his help. At least if he told her the facts, maybe she would not resent him.

"Elizabeth, I am so sorry," he finally said, raising his head back to her eye level. "I should have told you when you asked. Sirius was an informant for Voldemort back in the day," the girl did not flinch at the name. She had heard it before. Her father felt no reason to conceal a name, not from such an intelligent child. "He sold out James and Lily to Voldemort, and Harry too. Before he went and killed Peter."

Lizzie smiled at him before flinging her arms around his neck. Remus returned the embrace, lifting his daughter into his arms as he straightened. "I know why you lied," Lizzie said quietly. "I'm a child. I know that. I'm smart, but I'm a kid still, and you're trying to be a good dad." She pulled back a little. "You are a good dad you know. But I can handle the answers to the questions I pose."

Remus nodded and began walking toward Lizzie's bedroom. It was quite late now. "I'll remember that, little girl," he said. When he set her down, standing on her bed, Remus shuffled around gathering some night clothes for her. "One thing," he added to their conversation.

"What?"

"Tell Harry nothing."