The boathouse was silent, save the creaking wood and the slight sloshing of water as it hit bare rock. Aria quiet sat in her chair, going over her notes. Her three-week suspension but a hinge in her homework and tests. With the end of term around the corner, she was trying her hardest to catch up. Her Divination works was done, her DADA homework done; right now, she was currently struggling with Arithmancy and Potions. Since her Grandpa was a Curse Breaker at Gringotts, she sent her notes to him and asked if he could fill in any blanks for her and thankfully, not a day passed before she received the best notes she could ever have. Her Potions work though was a little less than to be desired. Slughorn was possibly the WORST teacher of all time. He never gave her clear answers to any of her questions; thankfully, she had an amazing tutor in her back pocket. Snape's ghost was actually their DADA professor, but thanks for some cunning ingenuity she managed to wrangle him to help her with her homework. Unlike her father and brothers, she was absolute shit at Potions.

"Let me see." His ghost moved over her shoulder and looked at her notes, their final project was to brew a sleeping draught. While she had asked her father for the exact instructions on how to do it, she just could never get it right. Something always went wrong and the brew would either just make someone dizzy, explode, and on one occasion, Slughorn made her throw it out because it was too potent and would likely kill someone. "Better."

"Thank you Professor." Aria, for some unknown reason had become extremely attached to the grouchy ghost of Severus Snape. Her first term, she was exploring the grounds when she tripped and fell down the long steps to the boathouse, successfully breaking her leg. No one was around to help her and she kept thinking she was never going to get back to the castle. Until Snape showed up and vanished in the blink of an eye. Next thing she knew, Hagrid came barreling down the steps and took her to the infirmary. Once her leg was better, she went back down to the boathouse and became immediately attached to him.

Why he liked to stay in the boathouse, she never knew. Most of the ghosts of Hogwarts preferred to stay within the castle walls, but Severus remained in the old shack when not in classes. He even refused to partake in the opening ceremony each term. Saying that he had better things to do than to try to scare young children. That got a laugh from her father. Apparently that was all he seemed to do during his previous teaching days.

She looked out the large pane windows and saw the sun was beginning to set. "I better get going. I don't think I can afford to be out past curfew."

Gathering her things, she shoved her notes into her bag and lugged it over her shoulder. "I'll come by tomorrow and let you know how it went?" He didn't say anything, but just inclined his head to her before whishing away.

As she climbed up the steps back to the castle, she completely ignored the feeling in her chest.

"I DID IT!" Aria screamed as she ran into the boathouse. She held up her grading paper to show it off. Snape flew down from the rafters and reviewed the paper.

"You hardly passed." He sneered at the young girl.

"Ah! But I passed." She sang as she twirled around the floor. "Oh man, Da is going to flip."

She could have sworn she saw a small smile grace his usually sour face. She pulled a small paper and pen from her bag and started writing a letter to her father, through she probably wouldn't send it until just before dinner.

She could feel his eyes boring into her, it made her feel uneasy and excited at the same time. She would not deny it to herself; she had developed an attraction to the sarcastic grump. She knew it was stupid and extremely implausible, but she could not deny it. Every time she had a problem at school, or even at home, he was the one she would share her fears with. He made her feel safe, comfortable. He had even shared his story with her.

Aria could not deny that some, if not all, of his actions were questionable. She knew of his love for Lily Potter, what he had done to keep her safe, what he had done to her Uncles and Aunt, his involvement with the Dark Lord, everything. None of that though, compared to when he told her of his life before Hogwarts. She could never imagine something so cruel. While her Gramps did scare her sometimes, she couldn't imagine her own father doing to her what had happened to Severus, or of what happened to his mother.

"Severus…" She paused, unsure of how to ask him this, "do you think it's possible to bring back the dead?"

Severus looked down at the young girl, he could not deny that she reminded him much of Lily, but she was often her own person, someone that he had come to admire, even enjoying her company. "There are ways, but the dead do not belong in this world. They would not come back as themselves, only a version of it. To rip someone from the void could cause a number of complications."

"What if they weren't in the void? What if their soul refused to move on? Do you think that it would be possible? I mean, they stayed around for something, why wouldn't it be to come back again?"

He was confused by her questions. While it was true, many stayed behind due to unfinished business. He himself did not journey on because he was not ready to face the afterlife. He was not ready to face all those that had died by his hand, inadvertently or not. "Why do you ask?" His eyes glaring down into hers, trying to find some answer.

"No reason, curiosity I guess." With a smile, she grabbed her stuff and went to leave. "I'll see you in class tomorrow?"

"Of course."

With that, she made the trek up the winding staircases. There had to be a way, there just had to be.

The Ravenclaw common room was exceedingly quiet, more so than normal. With final exams just around the corner, many had their noses stuck in books and quickly scribbling down notes. Aries just thumped through his Divination book. It was his last exam before the end of term. He had done extremely well it the rest of his exams, and for some unknown reason, he was actually quite good at Divination. More than once, Trelawney commented that he more than likely had a seer in his family long ago. He actually used it several times to flirt with some of the prettier women at school. They seemed to eat out of the palm of his hand when he would read love lines.

Giving up on studying, he closed his book and tucked it in his bag. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sent it back to his room, nearly knocking a seventh year in the head. Laughing, he left the common room looking for something to do. Most were done with exams, just loitering about the grounds without care in the world. The Quidditch teams however were furiously going over game plans and strategies. Tomorrow would be an all out battle between the four houses. It was more of a scrimmage than an actual game. The game for the Quidditch cup would be decided next week. The last match of the year, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin. His father had tried to get him to join, but Quidditch was more his sisters game. He would rather play a game of chess or Go, a game one his classmates introduced him to.

There was actually a bet going on in their family about who would win the cup. Roxanne was captain of the Ravenclaw team, while Scorpius leaded Slytherin with his sister as co-captain. Between the two of them, they practically dominated every match. But his cousin was not going to go down without a fight. According to his father, a majority of his family was coming to watch the final game. They even managed to let McGonagall give them their own private seating for the game.

"Malfoy!" Aries whipped his head around and saw Malachy running towards him. "I just saw the greatest thing ever." A shit-eating grin on his face.

"And what was that Byrne?"

"Your parents' gitin' on in the store room." He laughed out. Aries eyes widened. What the hell?!

"Fuck off." Aries shoved his friend.

"Nah, I'm serious man. Had her bent over barrel and everything."

"You're lying."

"Aries!" Again, he turned around and saw his sister running towards her. "Please, oh gods, please tell it's not true."

"What?"

"Mum and Da are here! Just ran into Scorpius and I guess they're here for that job education week."

Aries ran a hand over his face as Malachy just bent over laughing. "Did I miss something?" Aria looked over at the blonde with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, apparently Mom and Dad are fucking in store rooms."

Aria made an almost gagging noise when her brother told her. "You have got to be joking."

"He aint! Saw it with me own eyes." Malachy chuckled from his spot now lying on the grass.

Aries grabbed his twins arm and led them both away from the laughing idiot. The fair was taking place in the Great Hall, so he knew which hallways and staircases to avoid that might lead them to their parents. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Rounding a corner, he was nearly hit with an opening door.

"So sorry…." Aria's face paled as she saw her parents coming out of the closet. Draco had missed a few buttons and Tori was still trying to straighten out her skirt.

"Seriously?! You guys couldn't wait until you got home?" Aries cried, "I'm never going to hear the end of this from Malachy."

"I told you he looked familiar!" Tori slapped her husbands arm.

"I'm gonna go puke now." Aria turned around to walk away from her parents only to slam right into someone.

"What's going on?" Scorpius looked from his siblings to his father and stepmother.

"Just a couple of nymphos." Aria muttered.

"What…." That's when he took in their appearances. "Oh no, don't tell me you walked in on them?!" He almost started to laugh.

"It's not funny Scor!" Aria whacked her oldest brother. "And no, we didn't. We just happened to be here when they came walking out of the store room."

"Nearly hit me in the nose too." Aries grumbled, rubbing his nose.

Scorpius couldn't help it any longer. Bending over, he started laughing, hands on his knees to keep him from falling over. "At least you never walked in on them."

"Yes, your brother didn't seem to know what a locked door meant." Draco drawled out. Wrapping his arm around his wife's waist, he pulled her in closely. "It's not like it's an unspeakable event. How do you think you got here? I can remember it well; you're mother walked in wearing this skimpy little…."

"Nope!" The twins shouted as they ran away from their parents. Scorpius not far behind them, still laughing.

Tori looked up at her husband, "How much more torture do you think we're going to inflict on them?"

"Well, I don't plan on stopping just yet, so probably for the rest of their lives." He winked, kissing the top of her head.

Removing herself from her husband, she started heading back to the Great Hall. "By the way love, you missed a button." Walking away, she purposefully put an extra swing into her step, knowing Draco would be watching her go.