Author's Note

Hello everyone! Well, I would like to start by thanking everyone for the wonderful reviews I recieved for the last chapter! You guys are the best! It means so much!

So this chapter is a little shorter than the last few have been. The reason for that is because this chapter and the next were originally going to be one big chapter, but I decided to split them up so I could get this part out to you guys. Hopefully you can expect chapter 13 by tomorrow, and Monday night at the latest.

And yes, there is a reason that I included this first little scene in this chapter, even if it seems completely random, haha :) Actually, everything will make more sense once you read chapter 13!

So anyway, here's chapter 12! Sorry for not updating yesterday, I had 10 hours of music rehearsal. It was hard core and SO much fun.

I am probably the biggest band geek ever! Haha :)

Okay enough rambling! Read, enjoy, REVIEW! Keep it coming you guys! Thanks :)

Disclaimer: I don't own HP!

12. Concern

The remainder of winter holidays passed by quickly at Lily's house. I adored her parents, both muggles and so completely different from my own. I was shocked that they were so welcoming to me, given the circumstances. It was hardly a secret that I was now wanted by the most dangerous group of wizards in Britain. I was also a threat to everyone around me, who could easily be caught in the cross-fire if a death eater really did come after me. Yet the Evans' didn't seem to mind, and seemed thrilled to have me around, much to my relief. I didn't really have anywhere else to go.

Now I sat at the long Gryffindor table between Lily and Sirius, clapping happily as Dumbledore finished his customary "welcome back" speech. The buzz of conversation sprang up as food materialized in front of us.

"I would just like to say," said James, staring seriously at Lily and speaking in a tone of voice I had become familiar with over the past few months as he continuously tried to win my best friend's heart. "that I missed you terribly over the past week, dearest Lily."

The entire table winced collectively, waiting for Lily's no doubt haughty response. However, her reply was surprisingly… pleasant. "Okay, James." She said to the bespectacled boy, "It's good to see you too, I suppose."

The look on James' face said it all. With a grin, he stared at Lily for a moment longer, a look of pure adoration on his face, before turning his gaze back to his dinner, still smiling. I looked over to Lily to see that her cheeks were stained red, a small smile on her own face.

Sirius leaned over to me, a few seconds later, apparently as shocked as I was. "Did that really just happen?" he whispered in my ear, his breath on my neck causing a small shiver to run down my spine.

I giggled softly at the disbelief in his tone that perfectly mirrored my own. "I'm as shocked as you are." I whispered back, shrugging my shoulders at him.

He raised his eyebrows at James, who after making sure Lily's attention was elsewhere, gave Sirius and I an extremely enthusiastic thumbs-up. It made my heart swell to see James's efforts finally rewarded, if only a little bit. I had a feeling that Lily was starting to see her long-term admirer in a new light.

The next morning, the six of us sat at breakfast, sleepy but excited for the start of the new term. Lily was already reading through our new herbology textbook, Sirius and James were planning their next prank (the target being Slytherin sixth years), Peter was happily shoving toast and eggs into his mouth, and Remus was staring off into space, looking rather tired. I was awaiting the daily prophet, which I had come to rely on the past few weeks to bring me the latest news on the war I had somehow managed to launch myself into the middle of.

At that moment the owls arrived, an experience that even all these weeks later seemed to send a little jolt of dread through my spine.

I shivered, almost imperceptibly, but Sirius caught it, looking over momentarily from his animated conversation with his best friend to catch my eye and smile at me reassuringly.

I smiled back, hardly surprised that he'd noticed. He was noticing a lot of things lately, always managing to catch my attention in class or at meals and put my mind at ease.

I loved Lily like a sister, and Remus and James and even Peter like brothers, but there was something about Sirius that was a little different than everyone else in my life. As cheesy as it sounds, he just got me.

A loud thud—which turned out to be the sound of my newspaper dive-bombing onto the empty breakfast plate in front of me—shocked me out of my wandering thoughts about Sirius and back to reality.

I blinked a few times and looked up in time to see something else flying towards me from above: a simple white envelope. When it landed on top of the Prophet, I immediately recognized my mother's loopy handwriting, in which my name was scrawled messily on the front. It appeared to have been written in great haste.

This realization only added to my rising panic. With a shaky hand I took the letter off of the table and gripped it tightly in my hand, cursing my awful luck when it came to mail.

"Um…" I began, casting a quick look around me and breathing a sigh of relief when everyone appeared to be oblivious to the situation at hand. A letter from my mother… well, my heart sunk just thinking about it. "I forgot something in my room. See you all in class." I tried to keep my voice level, avoiding their gaze and walking away as calmly as I could. I didn't want to alarm my friends, and I felt a strange need for privacy, as if the contents of this letter could cause harm to every person it came into contact with.

Not just me.

I was out of the Great Hall and turning down a vacant corridor when I heard footsteps behind me.

I whirled around, reaching for my wand, wanting to desperately to be alone, until my eyes met Sirius's.

"Who's it from?" he asked immediately, his eyes now moving down to the envelope in my hand. "You're dad?"

I bit my lip, then decided to take the cowardly route. "Oh? The letter? It's nothing. I'm just going up to my room like I said I was. I'd totally forgotten about the letter." I tried to say in the most blasé manner I could manage, knowing even as the words came out of my mouth that they wouldn't convince a five year old.

He looked at me critically for a moment before rolling his eyes and leaning against the wall of the corridor, crossing his strong arms in front of him. "Okay, first of all, you're going in the complete opposite direction of Gryffindor tower. Second, you're a horrible liar. Thirdly, we both know that the letter you keep trying to stick farther and farther into your sleeve is important and probably unpleasant. Lastly," at this point I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to object to this little lecture, but he cut me off with a raised hand. There's no point trying to avoid it, because I'm not about to let you deal with this by yourself."

He leaned back against the wall with a satisfied smirk, daring me to object to or deny any of the things he had just said.

But they were all true, and we both knew it, so with a sigh I leaned against the wall next to him and slid down to sit on the cold stone of the corridor, him doing the same thing a second later.

"Alright," I said, breaking the seal and pulling out the folded piece of paper within. "It's from my mother."

Adeline,

I write to you in secret, imploring you to return to the manor and beg your father as well as the Dark Lord for forgiveness. Claim that you were taken against your will, and that you wish to be a loyal subject and death eater.

I cannot guarantee that they will accept you back. However, sooner or later you can be certain that the Dark Lord's followers will track you down. Of this I am sure.

Please, daughter, I urge you to return to us and ask for forgiveness. Not doing so would be suicidal.

Lenoir Undine Villori

I read the short message silently, then handed it to Sirius without comment. He took it, scanned it quickly, then crumpled it up furiously and threw it against the opposite wall.

I looked at him, alarmed, as he sat there, breathing heavily and glaring at the letter as if it would stand up and come at me itself.

"Sirius," I said, putting a hand on his broad shoulder. "It's alright. I'm going to be fine—"

"It's not alright!" he shouted at me, standing up in the blink of an eye and backing up against the opposite wall, one hand pulling at the roots of his black hair. "Whatever it is, Adeline, it is not alright! I—You—Ah!" He let out a frustrated growl, his eyes blazing. "It's not alright." he repeated again, before turning on his heel and storming down the corridor and out of sight.

I was left there, completely bewildered, sitting alone in the middle of that deserted hallway. My eyes slowly moved from the direction in which Sirius had disappeared, down to the letter that still lay crumpled on the ground.

With a start I realized that it was on fire, the flames eating away at the parchment. I watched it until all that was left of my mother's desperate pleas were smoking ashes lying on the cold stones.

Sirius had obviously set the piece of paper on fire by accident, as he hadn't pulled out his wand or made any attempt to destroy it. He really was upset, then, if he was in enough of a rage to set things ablaze without even meaning to.

After a few minutes of solitude, in which I tried to make sense of my current situation-a mother who was begging me to ask one of the evilest men in the entire world for mercy, and a friend so upset by this news that he had literally set the nearest thing up in flames—I stood up and made my way to the Great Hall, surprisingly calm.

I had already known everything my mother had told me. Of course my family and their friends would try to track me down and kill me, at the Dark Lord's leisure. And it was true that there was a slight chance that I would be forgiven for my previous actions and allowed to be a death eater. Or at least allowed to live.

But this really meant nothing to me. I was prepared, as I had been that night during my near-induction into the dark side, to die before I became one of the Dark Lord's minions. I would gladly face death before becoming a murderer myself. It was simple.

I entered the Great Hall again, feeling oddly at peace with myself, but still heartily concerned for the boy I had come to rely on so fully these past few weeks, and found my friends in precisely the place I had left them. I noted, however, that Sirius was nowhere in sight.

Professor McGonagall handed me my times-table for the new term just as James seemed to notice that Sirius had not accompanied me back to the Hall. "Where's Padfoot, Addy?" he asked, looking concerned.

"Um…" I said, stuffing my times-table into my school bag and standing up, getting ready to walk with Lily to Herbology. "I don't know. Said he wanted to talk to Peeves for a minute about a prank, then just ran off. Could be anywhere."

James nodded seriously, apparently content with that lie, which made me wonder if Sirius was the only one I could tell nothing but the truth to.