Still don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters!

August 1998

Kingsley and Snape withdrew from the penseive and looked over at the Phoenix sitting asleep on her perch.

"As you can guess, Gilderoy made his monthly payments," Snape wrote calmly with his wand, "He sent me twelve-hundred galleons a month, thirty-six hundred total. He only stopped because he lost his memory down in the Chamber. Potter knows what happened, Daisy might as well if she projected herself down there in time."

"And…?" Kingsley said looking at the Phoenix warily.

"She was paid for in payments," Snape wrote calmly, "Daisy used the bet money from Gilderoy for half of what she owed. The startled shopkeeper asked where she got it and she replied 'gambling with Lockhart about who was better' like it was nothing. The look on his face was priceless."

"What about the rest of the money?" Kingsley asked, "She still owed one thousand four hundred and sixty galleons."

"Again, it was done through gambling. It wasn't hard for her. Okay, I admit, I kind of threatened her parents to give me four thousand pounds to pay for her textbooks and told them that the books were only going to get more expensive as the years went on and that she went for the classes that had the most textbooks and the most expensive ones required."

"How did they take it?" he asked, and Snape grinned madly. "Uh-oh."

"Oh, that's right," Snape sneered as he wrote with his wand again, "I set Peeves on them when they didn't give me the money required in time. Well, it was a week before school started up in nineteen ninety three that they sent five thousand pounds to me."

"What happened?" Kingsley asked worriedly as the water was shut off.

"I went to Diagon Alley, had it exchanged, and took Daisy down to the different shops. Most of the books were on low stock, but Jade was ecstatic to see her as Daisy stepped in to make the final payment at the Shopkeeper's shock and horror," Snape chuckled as he wrote, "I had to explain that she had recently inherited a small fortune from her stepmother. He then glanced at her before handing Jade over like nothing was wrong."

"Did anything happen after that? Was Jade allowed to remain at Hogwarts?" Kingsley asked, and Snape's face told him that Jade wasn't. "Why not?"

"Dumbledore said it was too dangerous for a second phoenix to remain in the Hogwarts owlrey, so I made a bargain with him. Jade remained with me while my owl, Hades, went with Daisy. It was quiet a genius setup, and it took all of two days for the students to figure out that she and I had each others' familiars."

"Well, even-even Harry knew?" Kingsley asked.

"Potter was ignorant," Snape dismissed through his countenance as he continued writing with his wand in smoke, "He knew she had a new owl, but had never seen Hades before that year. So, when he saw Hades going to her, he thought it was hers. It wasn't until his sixth year, when we switched back, that he realized the setup that we'd had."

"Poor Harry," Kingsley marveled, "How did he react?"

"Anger," Snape wrote calmly like it was obvious. "It was in her final year, when she needed him the most, that he cut her off for taking my side. He accused her of being a Death Eater, and Albus ended up having to give her private quarters to keep her safe. Jade was quite pleased with that arrangement."

At the mention of her names so many times in smoke, the Phoenix in question flew over to Snape, landed on his shoulder, and began crying on his neck wound.

"Why don't you show me some more memories of when Sirius broke out of Azkaban?" Kingsley asked.

"Why don't I show you my memories," Daisy said darkly as she came downstairs. "Severus, put your memories back."

Snape held up his wand and obeyed as she began removing her own memories and dropping them into a vial. Once Snape was done, she dumped the contents into the Pensieve.

"I'm warning you, this year was hell for me," She said calmly, "Black made sure of it. it's also why I became an animagus, at the time illegal."

"But why didn't you go to Azkaban or get fined?" Kingsley asked appalled.

"That's what I'm going to show you," Daisy said like it was obvious. "But all that aside, I'd have died if I hadn't been able to purchase Jade over that summer."

"Why?" Kingsley asked confused, and she narrowed her eyes and lowered her shirt to show a large faint scar that even Snape didn't know she had. "What happened to you?"

"Black," she said calmly, "When I wouldn't give him the things he wanted."

The two wizards did nothing but blink as the three of them put their fingers to the penseive to go in.

Oiyah... I'm getting tired... not just of uploading my fanfics en masse, but also in general... *yawns* but a promise is a promise...

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