REVISED 6/27/2013.

January quickly turned into February for Kirsten. She desperately wanted to find time to figure out what Sirius told her. He was after someone in the school. Not her or Harry. But whoever this person was had to be in Gryffindor, that was for sure. Why else would the man break into Gryffindor Tower?

That was about as far as she got. She unfortunately didn't have time to spare for her wandering mind like she did during Christmas holiday. Snape and McGonagall seemed to make sure that she was being more studious. Her "extra" lessons were becoming more tedious as it brought more essays for her to complete. Thankfully, Cedric and Hermione made sure she studied with them in the library constantly.

Harry was someone she was avoiding like the plague. After the encounter with her father, she couldn't face Harry. She wished she asked him if it was true that he sold out Lily and James Potter to Voldemort. But would Harry even listen to her if Sirius didn't?

She doubted it.

Kirsten's eyes currently surveyed the crowd around her and her brow furrowed into a frown.

"Where the hell have you gone?" Kirsten mumbled about her bushy haired friend. This happened almost everyday to Kirsten and Hermione must think she was stupid if she didn't notice. One second she would be next to Kirsten as they were heading to class or lunch, and the next Hermione would disappear by her side. She didn't understand how the witch did it, showing up quite a ways behind her. Of course there were students crowding the halls around these times so it was hard to move by in the large halls. Her eyes passed over Harry and Ron, but she couldn't find her bushy haired friend. It didn't take long for the crowd thinned considerably and there was still no sign of Hermione.

The third year felt her body being roughly pushed aside.

"Watch where you're going, Carlisle!"

The shriek caused all the students in the corridor to stop milling about in the halls.

Kirsten looked down and glared at the owner of the annoying high voice that shouted at her. She raised an eyebrow at the state Pansy Parkinson was currently in. The Slytherin's stood up with the help of one of her friends, her face and robes splattered with black ink.

"Take your own advice for once," she replied, proceeding to walk around the Slytherin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Parkinson pull out her wand and narrowed her eyes.

Oh, she's had enough of this.

The black haired witch grabbed Parkinson's wand hand quickly, twisting it as she pushed it to the side. She didn't stop there, pulling her arm back and slamming her fist into the side of Parkinson's face. A shrill scream escaped the Slytherin's mouth as she fell to the floor. Two Slytherin girls ran to their fallen friend.

"Shut the hell up," she said slowly, glaring down at the girl. She stepped around the pug faced girl, ignoring the perplexed looks from most of the Gryffindors — Harry and Ron included — in her year, along with several Hufflepuffs, Slytherins, and Ravenclaws.

Her eyes caught sight of McGonagall walking right down the corridor towards her, a frown on her face.

Kirsten decided now was good as any to move as fast as she could.

"Classes have already started. What is everyone — Carlisle!"

Kirsten rolled her eyes.

"Bulstrode, take Parkinson to the hospital wing. The rest of you get to your classes immediately," the Transfigurations professor commanded. The students around her scattered and Kirsten moved to follow them. "Not you, Carlisle."

Might as well make this quick.

"What happened this time?" McGonagall asked.

"Just defending myself from Parkinson, again," Kirsten told her truthfully. She had been on the Slytherin's radar more than usual since term started back up again.

Kirsten made sure to not break her staring contest with McGonagall. The woman nodded her head tersely.

"That is not an excuse," she told the girl.

"I'm not saying it is."

This got the professor to raise an eyebrow.

"I'll come by after dinner, I suppose," Kirsten added compliantly.

"Actually Professor McGonagall, if you don't mind, I would like Kirsten to serve her detention with me," a voice called out.

The professor and student turned their heads in the direction of the new voice and Kirsten had to try her hardest to fight a smile.

"Very well, Lupin," McGonagall said, glancing briefly at Lupin. Her eyes locked onto the young witch beside her and sent her a pointed look. "Carlisle, this will be your seventeenth detention since you've been here."

"Only seventeen? With all the scrubbing and polishing, and the occasional lines, I'm certain I did more," the young girl replied. "I'm pretty much a one man cleaning crew."

The pointed look McGonagall sent her turned into the look in a heartbeat.

"Detention, Carlisle, for a week," the woman snapped at her. "I expect you on time to my class."

And with that, the strict woman turned around and headed into her classroom.

"Thanks, Professor," she said gratefully, and tucking a curly strand of hair behind her ear. The man just saved her from a weeks detention with her head of house. She started towards his classroom but a hand on her shoulder halted her movement, and she turned her head to face the young professor.

"Are you all right?"

Kirsten knew what he was talking about. She looked in the mirror earlier that day and took a little step back while she was brushing her teeth. The bags in her eyes were becoming more prominent due to her staying up most nights and trying to finish her work. It was hard work trying to catch up to her. She didn't have a problem with many spells as long as she practiced. It was just the amount of essays pushed on top of the pile along with the detentions she found herself in. And her trying to have better control over her power.

With the students returning, it made for better practice with Lupin's help but it hurt like hell.

"Yeah, just a bit tired," she told him. "Sorry that I held you off class."

He waved his hand as if it were no problem. The two began to head towards his classroom, and the professor glanced at the student beside him.

"Your detention starts at eight tonight in the History of Magic classroom," he said, entering the classroom, "and bring your wand."

Kirsten looked at the man in confusion.

Bring a wand?

"Professor Lupin! I'm so sorry I'm late!" Kirsten yelled, practically barreling through the History of Magic classroom. "I forgot you said Professor Binn's class —"

She shut her mouth as her eyes landed on the person beside Professor Lupin.

"If this is a bad time then I will happily come back tomorrow night," she said, her eyes flickering back and forth between the two. She saw the smile Lupin had on his face before looking at the bespectacled boy.

"No, this is your detention, Kia," he informed the witch.

All of her hard work avoiding the boy wonder.

This was possibly the worst idea.

"Maybe I should go and serve detention for McGonagall..."

She inched back to leave the classroom.

"You are serving detention with me," he told her, raising an eyebrow. "And I thought you'd enjoy this more than polishing all the trophies in the trophy room, am I correct?"

Oh, he had her there.

"I'm staying here," she said quickly, closing the door behind her. "What am I doing?"

"You are going to demonstrate the Patronus charm," he told her.

He has got to be kidding.

Over the course of January, Lupin came up with the good idea for her to learn the charm. She knew that he promised to teach Harry, but to teach her? Even though they did affect her, it wasn't as bad as Harry. She finally gave in after Lupin reminded her that dementors were dangerous. She thought she would be able to perform the spell as easily as others.

Not at all.

It took her the whole month of January.

She nodded her head, pulling out in the process. She took a deep breath, thinking of a happy memory. A small grin formed on her face as she found the perfect one.

It was with Aaric.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Blinding her eyes for a moment, a stunning figure emerged from the tip of her wand. She looked on in mild surprise at the pearly white creature before her before a small smile broke out on her face. Flapping it's long elegant wings before her was, without a doubt, a phoenix. The radiant bird swept down and created circles around her body, causing her hair curly hair to fly around her face. It wasn't long before the bird stopped, reached eye level with her, and then vanished in a wisp of white smoke.

"That was excellent, Kia!" she heard Lupin exclaim.

She almost forgot that they were there. Her eyes landed on Lupin with a smile before glancing at Harry, his mouth open with shock.

BANG.

Kirsten nearly jumped at the sound and her eyes landed on a packing case, near Harry and Lupin.

She learned that Lupin had a boggart in there so Harry could practice the Patronus charm. After Lupin tried and failed to have a conversation, involving both her and Harry to question each other about their happy memories and the Patronus charm, Lupin had Harry go ahead and prepare to perform the spell.

Not wanting to get too close to the boggart, the witch made sure to be a safe distance away from other two. Kirsten watched Harry closely as Lupin opened the box, revealing the thing Harry feared most.

She felt the same sensations she did with a real dementor, but tried her hardest to keep her concentration on Harry. As much as she didn't like him at the moment, she did want him to perfect the spell. The dementors really did affect him the worst way possible.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled. "Expecto Patronum! Expect—"

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

His yelling was pushed to the back of her mind as she felt heartbeats pounding in her head unexpectedly. Taking a deep breath, the girl tried to grab a hold of something to let her anger out. Her hand grasped around something solid. But it was useless at the moment due to one heartbeat in particular. It was beating faster than she ever heard one before. She needed to stop soon. She could feel the anger...

It stopped suddenly and the girl let out a sigh of relief as the sharp pain subsided and left her with a terrible headache. Her grey eyes opened and widened when she found a shocked Harry and a concerned Lupin staring at her. She was sitting on the floor and stood up quickly, frowning.

What happened to the desk...?

Her eyes landed on the desk she held on to, or what was the desk. On the floor were three large broken pieces of wood.

She broke the desk.

Kirsten looked at Lupin, a troubled look on his face, before she saw him pull out his wand. She didn't hear him utter a word as he repaired the desk.

"Are you —"

"It's nothing, Professor. I — I just have a headache," she told him. The man nodded his head, but the look still didn't leave his face.

She was getting the hang of controlling the heartbeats, and this happened to be the first time in months that it went out of control. And she knew why. That one heartbeat was pounding faster than she's ever heard. And she knew who it belonged to.

Harry.

It was odd how it felt familiar to her. After all she was sure this wasn't the first time she's heard his heartbeat before.

"You're expecting too much of yourself," Professor Lupin said. Kirsten looked at him to see he was talking to Harry. "For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement. You aren't passing out anymore, are you?"

"I thought a Patronus would—charge the dementors down or something," Harry said. "Make them disappear—"

"The true Patronus does do that," Lupin told him. "But you've achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground."

"You said it's harder if there are loads of them," Harry said, and Kirsten rolled her eyes.

Oh no, Harry. The more dementors there are the easier it becomes.

"I have complete confidence in you," Lupin said, his lips pulled into a smile. "Here—you've both earned a drink—something from the Three Broomsticks. You won't have tried it before—"

The man pulled out what Kirsten noticed to be three bottles of butterbeer from his briefcase.

"Butterbeer!" Harry said, clearly not thinking. "Yeah, I like that stuff!"

Kirsten shot him a look of warning as he caught her eye.

Was he an idiot?

Lupin raised an eyebrow, looking back and forth between her and Harry.

"Hermione and Ron bought some back for us when they went to Hogsmeade," she explained to him. She honestly didn't care if Harry got in trouble. But since she was here and was apart of the little Hogsmeade adventure, there was huge possibility she would get in trouble if he did. The last thing she wanted was to get another week of detention.

"I see," the professor said, but his eyes told her that he was still suspicious. "Well—let's drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I'm supposed to take sides, as a teacher…," he added hastily.

The three began to drink their butterbeer in silence.

"What's under a dementor's hood?"

Kirsten glanced in the green eyed boy's direction before looking at Lupin thoughtfully.

"Hmmm…well, the only people who really know are in no condition to tell us. You see, the dementor lowers its hood only to use its last and worst weapon."

"What's that?"

"They call it the Dementor's Kiss," Lupin told him, with a slightly twisted smile. Kirsten nodded her head, following the conversation. That was the main reason why she took Lupin on his offer to teach her the Patronus charm.

"It's what dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and—and suck out his soul."

Harry accidentally spat out a bit of his butterbeer.

"What—they kill—?"

"Oh no," Lupin interrupted him. "Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no…anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just—exist. As an empty sell. And your soul is gone forever…lost."

Kirsten wondered how many people had that happen to them. To have their very soul taken away. She shuddered as she thought about it.

Nobody deserves that.

"It's the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given the dementors permission to perform it if they find him," Lupin said, after taking another sip of his butterbeer.

Her mouth dropped and she mentally cursed, realizing that was why Hermione wouldn't let her read the Daily Prophet during breakfast.

"He deserves it."

Kirsten's head snapped in the direction of the boy. Her bottle slipped from her hands and cracked as it made contact with the floor. She felt the liquid seep onto the bottom of her robes and saw it spray the floor. It didn't take her long to pull out her wand.

"Scourgify!" she whispered, pointing it at herself and the ground. Anger flooded through her, closing her left hand into a fist before she pointed her wand at the shards of glass. The shards of glass picked themselves up and formed back into the bottle, although it was empty. She glanced at her hand, a small wave of shock hit her since she didn't mutter a spell. But she met Harry's eyes and she felt her own narrow, the bottle forgotten.

"Nobody deserves that kind of punishment no matter who they are," Kirsten said, and was slightly surprised how cold her voice sounded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lupin's eyes widen.

"Sirius Black deserves it," Harry responded heatedly.

"Why does he deserve it?" she retorted, glaring at his emerald green eyes.

"For…for some things."

"For some things that nobody can prove," she remarked. "Look at it this way. What if your father was in Sirius Black's position? I wouldn't want him to serve a fate like that, Potter."

Pure silence ensued the classroom.

She watched Harry as he said his thanks to Lupin and left the classroom, leaving her alone with the professor. Watching the boy who lived walk out the door, Kirsten slumped her shoulders. Her eyes downcast on her bottle, she could feel her anger slowly cease.

"Kirsten, what is going on?"

In her moment of anger she forgot Lupin was in the room. It was the first time she had an actual conversation with Harry since he decided to get slam-happy with her on their Hogsmeade escapade.

"Sirius Black is what's going on," she replied hotly.

She didn't give a damn if he knew that she knew anymore. How long did they think they would hide such vital information from her? Besides Dumbledore knew about this, so she really care.

The man's eyes widened as he looked at her and he opened his mouth, but Kirsten beat him to the punch.

"I don't know how stupid Fudge thinks I am," she said, narrowing her eyes at the thought of the man. He was definitely not on good terms with her. And she doubted whether he ever would redeem himself. "How could I not find out that Black's my father?"

Her eyes flashed at the man before and she saw his eyes were wide as he looked at her.

"And now my friend is severely pissed at me for what my father supposedly did," Kirsten continued. "The man doesn't seem to act like a murderer."

She rolled her eyes at the thought. She really wanted to punch him right now.

"What do you mean?"

Kirsten looked at Lupin and tilted her head to the side, watching him look at her with confusion mingled with shock and concern.

"You need to know he's not after me or Harry," she told him quietly. "Don't tell anyone will you?"

His eyes widened in shock at the girl before him and before he could say another word, Kirsten walked out of his room. She was glad that the professor didn't follow her to ask anymore questions.

Her legs carried her through the corridor and she caught sight of Professor McGonagall handing Harry a broom before leaving him with a few words. A smirk tugged at her lips as she walked towards the now lone Gryffindor.

"No jinxes on it?"

Green eyes met hers and she didn't witness any furious glint in his eyes. Just a hint of shock.

"Nothing," he responded breathlessly. Kirsten didn't stop as she walked past Harry and was surprised when he decided to walk next to her.

"Kirsten, I —"

The boy who lived was cut off by a certain redheaded Gryffindor as the two turned the corner.

"Hey Kia!" Ron said, glancing her way with a smile. His attention immediately turned on Harry, and his eyes looked at the broom in awe. "She gave it to you? Excellent! Listen, can I still have a go on it? Tomorrow?"

"Yeah…anything…," Harry said, not even looking in Ron's direction. His green eyes were on Kirsten, and the girl decided to walk ahead of the two friends. "You know what—we should make up with Hermione….She was only trying to help…"

"Yeah, all right," Ron said. "She's in the common room now—working, for a change—"

Kirsten wanted to roll her eyes at the two boys. She couldn't believe that Ron and Harry stopped talking to Hermione because she reported the broom to McGonagall. It was just a broom.

She turned into the corridor to Gryffindor Tower and was met with Neville pleading with Sir Cadogan.

"I wrote them down!" Neville said tearfully. "But I must've dropped them somewhere!"

"A likely tale!" Sir Cadogan roared. It wasn't long till the knight spotted her.

"Good evening, fair Lady Kirsten! What a plea—"

"Oddsbodikins," she said, interrupting the knight. He reluctantly swung the portrait open as he eyed Neville.

"Hey," she greeted Neville. "What was that all about?"

"Thanks, Kirsten. I lost all the passwords after I made him tell me the other passwords he's going to use this week and I wrote them down because he keeps changing them," Neville said miserably as they went through the portrait hole together.

"It's all right. I'll make a list for you. I asked him earlier also so I could memorize them," she reassured him, throwing a smile his way. It didn't take Kirsten long to bound up the spiral staircase to her dormitory and said hello to Parvati and Lavender.

Kirsten's eyes landed on her bag full of homework and then glanced at bedside table where her mother's journal sat. She hadn't even opened it since reading the first page of her mother's letter to her. And she really did want to have a look.

Her eyes went back and forth between her homework or her mother's journal. It took about a good half an hour of deciding. But that could be because she was chatting it up with Parvati and Lavender.

She headed back downstairs and settled in the sofa next to Hermione, a smile on her face. Hermione raised an eyebrow as she looked at the journal in Kirsten's hands.

"Are you done with all your work?"

"No, I've got two more papers to write before the nights over," Kirsten replied.

"Kirsten..."

Kirsten felt Hermione's curious eyes on the journal in her hands and met her brown eyes with a grin.

"What's that?"

"My mother's journal," Kirsten told her quietly. She saw her brown eyes widen in surprise.

"Your mum's...when did you get it?" she asked curiously.

"Christmas day and I still haven't —"

"LOOK!"

If Kirsten wasn't so adamant about keeping herself collected, she possibly would have punched Ron in the face at that very moment. She turned her head to see him storming in their direction, bed sheets in his hand.

"LOOK!" he yelled again, voice shaking as he did so. Kirsten looked at Ron incredulously when he decided to stuff the bed sheets in their faces.

"Ron, what—?"

"SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!"

Oh.

Kirsten took another look at the sheets to see a stain trailing along the sheets.

"BLOOD!" Ron yelled into the stunned silence. "HE'S GONE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR?"

"N—no," Hermione said, her voice trembling.

Ron throws something down on top of Hermione's rune translations. Catching her eye were strands of hair that were very familiar to Kirsten, considering they were all over hers and Hermione's bed. Her eyes traveled to see Ron looking furiously at Hermione, his mouth shut.

Grey eyes narrowed as a thought struck her.

He put the bed sheets in their face.

"You're going to have a hell of a lot more to yell about if you don't take that bloody sheet away from my face."