The next morning came, but a very somber Remus announced to us that Sirius was nowhere to be found. The boys took up their whispers in their corner of the common room while the girls (sans Gwen) and I headed for the Great Hall for breakfast. There was already chatter going on at the Gryffindor table, and as I swept my eyes across to the Slytherin table it seemed like there was some related conversation going on there as well. A vibrant girl, older than us, with black bushy hair and dark eyes kept glancing over toward our table, grinning more and more each time.

"But I mean really, do you think Black's alright?" Ronnie said, her mouth full of eggs.

"Not that I care, but it's probably some elaborate scheme Potter and his gang have cooked up to annoy us again," Lily said quite angrily. She had leaned her Transfiguration book against the bowl of fruit and was multitasking – studying and arguing with Ronnie. At one point they had turned to me but, trying to stay out of it, I just shrugged my shoulders and continued eating my toast. I may have acted nonchalantly, but I honestly was worried about Sirius – Hogwarts was more of a home for him than he ever had. Surely he would do everything in his power to return. I even started when the Slytherin girl gave a loud cackling laugh, dropping my sausage in my lap. Jeanne must have sensed my concern as she laid a hand on my arm.

"He'll be alright," she mumbled while Ronnie and Lily continued their discussion. I turned and looked at Jeanne – she was giving me a sad little smile, her dark hair covering enough of her face to make her look full of childish hope. I had never noticed how frightened she always appeared, even though I was quickly finding out she was the quiet, stalwart pillar of our group. I squeezed her hand and nodded, acknowledging her attempt to make me feel better, and we both turned back to our respective meals.

After breakfast (at which point Ronnie and Lily had agreed to disagree), we made our way back up to the dormitories – Gwen refused to come out of her bed, so barring the occasional sympathetic glance we simply ignored her. While Lily was focused on her Transfiguration and Jeanne was braiding a new ribbon into her hair, I had grabbed Sirius' rock from under my pillow, where it had spent the night without glowing once. I turned it over and over in my hand without any thought to it, listening to the goings on in the room and what snippets of noise I could hear from the common room. All of a sudden someone was making a great deal of racket in the floors below, and with a quick glance to the girls, the four of us rushed down to the common room and saw him – Sirius was backed into a corner by James and Remus, looking quite flustered. Surprisingly, the source of the agitation wasn't James – in fact, the ringleader looked about as concerned for Sirius' well-being as Remus did. The three of them looked up as we entered and a big smile lit up Sirius' tired face; James on the other hand, delved back into his irritation and turned his back to us quickly. Sirius quickly dodged James and Remus and made his way over to us. I glanced behind him at James, but the latter was already once again in irritated whispers with Remus. I stepped away from the girls to meet Sirius halfway; once he had approached, he laid a hand on my shoulder and smiled.

"Thanks for the gift," I said quietly. My left hand still clutched the rock in my pocket. "It helped."

"Good," he replied. "And thanks for yours. The itching powder really made an impression on my brother." At this point he was grinning widely, remembering my Christmas gift.

"Sirius..." I started, before he cut me off. He was still grinning, but now it looked forced. His eyes looked darker, but it might have just been the light.

"Look, I'm fine. I just missed the train, no big deal." I frowned but after a moment I let my head dip into a nod. I didn't want to risk giving him a hug (James was still watching), so I just put my hand where his lay on my shoulder.

"I won't stop asking, though," I whispered. "You'll have to tell me sooner or later." He took his hand away and looked down at the ground, obviously in distress. I noticed that his actions seemed pained, almost cringing. Reaching up to brush his hair out of his face, he finally looked up to make eye contact and nodded. I gave him a half-hearted smile.

"Yeah, of course," he finally conceded. "Just… not now." He put on another fake smile, clapped me on the shoulder, acknowledged the girls behind me with a tip of his head, and then returned to James, Remus, and a suddenly-appearing Peter. I turned around and walked the few feet back to Ronnie and Jeanne – Lily had her back turned, refusing to acknowledge their existence. I thought she was taking this whole thing a little overboard, but considering she had stood up to Gwen for me at the end of last term, I was not going to be the one to tell her to get a level head.

"He's fine," I told them. "Just missed the train." The girls started whispering to each other, and I was only half listening. I had looked back at Sirius across the room, who had turned to look back at me. Something was terribly wrong, and I had to find out exactly what that was.

Term started quietly but slowly grew to a steady murmur – classes were getting harder in preparation for end-of-term exams. The only change to the course curriculum was the addition of flying lessons for first years – the poster appeared on the Common Room bulletin board that Tuesday afternoon. James and Sirius had let out a holler with the news, and they weren't alone - all the first years crowded around to read, and almost everyone was buzzing with excitement. The following Thursday evening, the first year class was marched down to the Entrance Hall and outside to the grounds. It was a clear night, and although there was still snow on the ground, the air was still and not the bitter cold it had been all week. One large area of the grounds had been charmed clear of snow -there we found the hawk-like Madam Hooch and a set of brooms waiting for us. We were paired with the Hufflepuffs of our year, none of whom I recognized except the one who had tried to sneak a button into McGonagall's mid-term exam.

The first lesson, I knew what was coming – we would get a chance to see who the natural born flyers were. With the one simple word of "up", the probable Quidditch players would be decided and I was praying to be one of them. We approached the brooms cautiously – Jeanne was on my left, her head cocked to the side and no expression on her face. I couldn't remember if she said she had ever flown before. Sirius was on my right, and he looked positively glowing: there was no way he wouldn't pass this test with flying colors.

Sure enough, when we were given the signal, Sirius was the first to bark "UP!" and the broom jumped into his hand. He grabbed it expertly and swung one leg over, ready to take off when Hooch gave her word. Jeanne on the other hand wasn't fairing so well. I had barely heard her speak, but the broom was turning over on the ground instead of rising to her outstretched hand. I was suddenly very nervous as I looked down at the dilapidated old broom next to my feet – I was willing that broom not to do anything but rise to greet my hand.

"Up!" I said loudly, putting every ounce of will I had into making that broom come to me.

And it did. Not the quick jolt that Sirius had caused, but a very steady rise. It slowed as it got more toward my hand as if it wasn't sure if I was really worthy to ride. I didn't give it an option; swooping in, I wrapped my hand around it and swung one leg over. Jeanne was still having trouble, but Sirius was grinning at me.

"We'll make a quidditch player out of you yet," he whispered with a wink.

I looked around the yard for other successes. James, of course, was already hovering slightly off the ground, just itching to get into the sky. Remus and Peter were both still struggling - Remus had managed to get his broom to rise a foot into the air, at which point it stubbornly refused to move any higher. A flustered Peter could not even get his broom to vibrate. The girls weren't faring much better – Jeanne had finally just picked up her broom when Hooch's back was turned. Ronnie had frowned at this, but after a few more moments of frustration, followed suit. Lily stubbornly refused to cheat, so her broom had yet to fully leave the ground – the front tip was tapping out a beat on the grass.

"You're brilliant at this aren't you, Evans?" James called from his broom. "There's no textbook on how to fly." Lily refused to respond, but her face flushed and she seemed to be trying ten times harder to get the broom to rise. Finally, tired of waiting, Madam Hooch asked those struggling with their brooms to simply pick them up and mount them. Lily looked very frustrated at this – I imagine she couldn't stand being bad at something in school, especially something that she couldn't research to be good at. Nevertheless, she had straddled the broom and kicked off the ground with the rest of us.

The first lesson was nothing exciting – Hooch simply had us run through cycles of kicking off and hovering for a few seconds before coming back down to land. I was really hoping someone would pull a Neville and lose control of the broom – no such luck. The only incident involved one of the Hufflepuffs slipping sideways off her broom while it was in the air. She proceeded to faceplant into the ground (to the amusement of all around her) but no serious harm was done. All too soon we were asked to dismount the brooms and collect them in the middle. On the way back to the common room, James and Sirius were laughing and poking fun at a couple of the people who had struggled – namely Peter and the Hufflepuff girl. Remus and Peter followed closely behind them while the girls and I let the distance between us and the boys increase until they were out of sight.

"Potter needs to get his big head out of his fat arse", Lily finally grumbled, obviously letting out the rant that she had held in throughout the lesson. "Just because his parents gave him a toy broom along with everything else he's ever wanted, that doesn't give him the right to be a pig." Ronnie and Jeanne nodded while I stuffed my hands in my pockets, falling behind the others by a couple steps. I figured it would be easier for Lily just to let out a little steam rather than try and cool her off too soon.

"I can't believe he would say something like that, especially to someone who's never even had a chance to ride a broom!" Ronnie added, pulling a pastry out of thin air. "Even with prior practice I know I'm a horrible flyer – I like having two feet on the ground!" Jeanne nodded again and then turned over her shoulder to look at me.

"You were good though, weren't you Brendi? When did you learn to fly?" she murmured, falling back to walk with me. The other two were still ranting ahead of us.

"I've never ridden a broom before today," I responded, running a hand through my hair. Jeanne tilted her head to the side, reminding me strongly of a confused puppy.

"Your parents never taught you to fly?" she asked.

"Uh… nope."

"Oh." She said quietly. We had fallen back a little from the Ronnie and Lily, but their voices could still be heard as if we were still next to them Lily hadn't strayed far from the "big head out of fat arse" line and Ronnie did nothing but nod and support her. Jeanne was silent for a moment and then –

"You don't talk about your family much."

It was a simple statement, but it wrecked me a little bit. I was really trying to avoid ever having to have this conversation - I had come up with a million excuses not to give away any information about who I really was, but my mind went blank. I walked silently next to her for a while before replying.

"Yeah." I sighed. It was a simple answer, but I didn't know what else to say. Jeanne opened her mouth to say something but then thought better of it. She was silent for a minute, but when I finally glanced over at her, she gave me this half-knowing/half-pity look, and then wrapped her left arm around my right and pulled me into what could only be described as an arm hug. We walked like this until we reached the Fat Lady and entered the common room. It made me feel a bit better to know that Jeanne cared, but the problem still remained – when were they going to seriously ask me where I was from? And more importantly…

What was I going to say?