Hermione shuddered on the sofa under the musty old quilts, knees pulled up to her chin, in the aftermath of Leo's outburst. But she wasn't just trembling because of the temperature – she was overcome with anger. She was so sick of Leo's attitude, his stubbornness… everything! Tomorrow Hermione was going to take things into her own hands, now that she had a little bit of leverage: she knew that Leo, either had been, or still was associated with Death Eaters… which wasn't as much of a shock to her as it should have been.

Neither of his arms bore the Dark Mark, so he couldn't have ever truly been one, and that put her slightly more at ease. But he had said "My Lord," in his sleep, loud and clear, and that clued Hermione into something important: He had been a subordinate to Voldemort. Since he wasn't marked for death by him (as evidenced by the fact that he was still alive), it could only indicate that he must have either been a servant unworthy of the Dark Mark, or waiting to receive it. With her knowledge of Leo's personality she was more inclined to believe the latter, regardless of how much she didn't want it to be true.

Those screams, though…

She didn't even want to try and imagine what it was that could make someone scream like that. Hermione massaged her forehead with the heels of her hands, sighed, and plopped on her back, pulling the quilt up to her shoulders. It was going to be a long night.

On the other side of the bedroom wall, Leo lay on top of his comforter, fingers woven together behind his head. The sweat had dried on his body, leaving a very fine layer of salt on his smooth, tanned skin. His breathing had returned to normal, but those horrific images stayed imprinted in his mind, branded into his memory. This wasn't the first time he'd had to relive what happened in Norway, and it wouldn't be the last. The dreams always got worse and worse as the full moon neared.

He was tired… so, so very tired. The full moon was a mere two days away, and he could feel it in every muscle fiber, every beat of his pulse, every gulp of air he took into his lungs. His sense of smell was much sharper and his eyesight more keen in the past week since he began taking the potion Hermione had made him; he desperately hoped that she was as good of a potion-brewer as she claimed to be, for both of their sakes. He had also been charming the inside of his closet over the past few days to make it larger, and reinforcing it with all sorts of spells and enchantments to help contain him if the potion should fail. It was the size of a small attic now, and he was admittedly rather proud of it.

He felt a familiar pang of loneliness as his thoughts turned to his deceased father. The glimpses he had seen from Hermione's memory played over and over in his head, from the two of them sitting at a kitchen table eating porridge together, to the night he was saved from the Dementor's Kiss. It was cruel how much time she had gotten to spend with him, when he had never even gotten to meet the man before he died…

Suddenly, Leo supported himself on his arms and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and getting to his feet. He wrenched the bedroom door open and crossed the hallway, entering the bathroom and turning the knob on the sink without bothering with the light. He let it run for a few moments, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

I can't keep cutting myself off from everything.

He had to push forward and stop with his self-destructive way of living. Leo splashed his face with water and turned the knob with a creak to shut the faucet off. His bare feet hardly made a sound on the floorboards as he shuffled down the corridor, pausing at the mouth of it to look at Hermione's dark silhouette against the streetlight outside. She was sitting up, facing him.

"What do you want?" she said apprehensively.

Leo remained silent, turning towards the window and slowly making his way to the front of the room. His hands were stuffed in his fleece pockets.

"I want you to tell me how my father died."

Hermione was more or less shocked, and she didn't bother trying to hide it. "Excuse me? You what?"

He still wouldn't look at her.

Enraged, she threw the quilts off of her and jumped to her feet, supporting herself with the arm of the sofa. "I can't stand you! Honestly! I can't stand your bloody mood swings! I realize it's your… your… time of the month –"

He whipped around to face her, jaw set. "Yeah, you're bloody right it's my time of the month, and it's a hell of a lot more of an ordeal than yours, so you can shut your trap and do this one thing for me. I'm trying here, I really am –"

"Trying? Trying to what, make me go mad?"

"Just TELL me, okay? I have the right to know what happened to my father! I need to know!"

Hermione sighed, slowly lowering herself back to sofa as Leo pulled the blinds to let moonlight into the room. After a long moment, she asked, "What do you want to know?"

He sat on the windowsill, his head turned in her general direction. Hermione couldn't make out the features on his face, and was glad of it; watching him watch her would have just made the whole situation that much more unnerving.

"Everything."

Hermione ran her hands through her hair, attempting to get her wits about her. "It was last school year when Harry learned of a prophecy concerning Voldemort and him. Of course, the Hall of Prophecy only allows those who have been prophesized about to take theirs from the shelf, and Voldemort couldn't just waltz into the Ministry and take it himself."

"At the same time, he knew about the secret society that Dumbledore was in charge of, the Order of the Phoenix…" she hesitated, wondering how much she should reveal to someone who had been associated with Voldemort himself. She supposed as long as she took care not to say anything about current affairs involving the Order, it would be alright; this was old news anyway. "Harry's parents had belonged to it, which was why they were marked for death in the first place. Other members of the Order had been guarding the prophecy all year upon the realization that Voldemort was trying to take it. After his escape from Azkaban and Hogwarts, Sirius was able to become an active member again."

"My father was a member of the secret society working against…. the Dark Lord?"

Hermione noted the way he addressed Voldemort with a bit of apprehension. "Yes."

Leo snorted. "Ironic, that is."

She waited several seconds, but he didn't continue. Then she prodded. "Is it ironic… because you were a Death Eater, Leo?"

Leo's silhouette stiffened. "Why would you say that?"

Hermione folded her arms. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I am not, nor have I ever been, a Death Eater."

"But you served under Voldemort," she said before she could stop herself.

"Has this become an interrogation?"

"Maybe. I'll give you information about your father's death… in exchange for answers about you."

"I don't really think you're in the position to make demands, Hermione Granger."

"I'm in the position to do whatever I like, Leo Black. I'm done playing the role of helpless victim. I'm finished keeping my mouth shut and deferring to you. I'm THROUGH!"

He scoffed, pausing for a moment to consider her. As her eyes finished adjusting to the light, she thought she could detect the shape of a smile in his facial features. "Fine then... We'll play your little game."

"Good. Answer my question then."

"No, you finish what you were telling me first."

"Not until you answer my question!"

"Fine." Leo's voice was low and mischievous. He stood from his perch on the windowsill and stepped towards Hermione slowly, kneeling in front of the couch. His face was inches from hers; she could feel his breath on her cheek. "I served under the Dark Lord."

Hermione's heart jumped into her throat and her pulse was rushing in her ears, but she struggled to maintain her composure.

"You really are the brains of Potter's operation, aren't you, Hermione? How did you figure that one out?

She gulped. "You were muttering… in your sleep, you said… you… Listen, how do you expect me to want to tell you anything now? How do I know you're just not going to run back to –"

"I take back what I said about your brains," he interrupted. "Hermione, no one just 'stops' being Voldemort's follower. Nobody just deserts him the way I did… You'd come to a gruesome end before you even had the mind to think about it."

"Exactly my point. How on Merlin's green Earth am I supposed to trust you?"

"Because," he sighed, getting back to his feet, "I'm already dead. And if I wasn't dead, I'd be marked for death." He paused to let that sink in, pacing in front of the sofa.

Hermione contemplated the confusing statement for a moment before letting her mind wander back to their encounter in the apothecary. "The evening we met… you said 'I'm not supposed to exist'…. Of course!"

She frowned. "But how did you… why did…. what happened to you?"

His face suddenly became stony, and that was the end of that. "My turn to ask the question," he cut in, ignoring her last inquiry. "Finish your story."

"That's not really a question," she grumbled, but it was hard for her to feign annoyance when she was actually as giddy as a child on Christmas morning, having started to piece together the enigma that was Leo.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Just get on with it."

"Right, well… where was I? Sirius was an active member again. During the school year, Dumbledore realized that the mental connection between Harry and Voldemort was getting stronger, so he tried teaching him Occlumency to keep Voldemort out of his mind. But it didn't work, and once Voldemort found out how to harness that connection, he planted a vision in Harry's head of Sirius being held captive in the Hall of Prophecy. Seeing as Sirius was Harry's only living family, Harry immediately went to his rescue."

Leo frowned at the mention of Harry's relation to Sirius, but said nothing.

"Several of us rushed with Harry to the Ministry of Magic, but when we got there, there was a group of Death Eaters waiting for us. It had all been a trick to get Harry to retrieve the prophecy Voldemort was looking for, and we fought them in the Department of Mysteries. Sirius and some of the Order showed up after a bit, and well… we were fighting in the Death Chamber…"

She didn't even realize she was wringing her hands together as spoke. Memories that she had tried all summer to suppress were now beginning to resurface, and she was finding it extremely difficult to locate the right words as hot tears blurred Leo's still form in front of her. So instead of trying to be tactful about it, she just let the words come.

"… and, well there was this archway, and I knew it was dangerous and there was just this awful vibe about it, and Harry kept on calling it a veil or something but I couldn't see the veil part because I guess it's one of those things, like thestrals, where you can only see it if you've seen death, and I think the veil must've been spirits or some manifestation of the barrier between life and death because when Bellatrix hit him with a curse he fell right through it and he… he was just… gone."

Leo watched Hermione cry on the sofa with mixed feelings. He wasn't sure what to make of the fact that she was so moved by talking about Sirius's death… he felt like he should be the one upset. She wasn't Sirius's own flesh and blood…. she wasn't his only living child… she wasn't anything to him.

"It's so bloody unfair," he spat, suddenly enraged.

"It's not, Leo," she whimpered softly, catching him off guard. "It's not fair at all." Hermione wrapped her arms around herself and wiped her frozen tears. Her fingers were numb, but she didn't care.

"He never even tried to contact me… never even tried to see me… not even when he got out of Azkaban. Not once. He probably was a better father to bloody –" he kicked the armchair, "hero –" scuffed the floorboards, "Potter."

Hermione said nothing.

"Didn't even leave me anything when he died."

This revelation caught her by surprise. "Are you sure about that?" she asked, raising her head to look Leo in the face. "He had a will, he left Harry his…" Uh oh.

"Harry? He left HARRY what, exactly? What on earth did he possibly have to give his godson that would take precedence over his REAL son?"

She gulped.

"Answer me!"

"His… erm… his house… and his house-elf… and, well, everything really."

Leo was fuming, and understandably so. "Harry fucking Potter…"

"It's not Harry's fault," she said, trying to defend her friend. "for Merlin's sake, don't blame him for not knowing you existed."

"I want you to take me there," he said suddenly.

"What? What do you…"

"Take me there! Take me to my dad's house."

"Leo, I don't –"

"Take me," he hissed, grabbing the front of her shirt and pulling her to her feet. Their faces were inches away again, and Hermione's stomach did a somersault. "Take me to my house. MY house. Right. Now."

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