I should apologize. What with working and school and my sister needing a place to stay and my grandmother dying, I haven't found a good time to write in a while.

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I would RULE THE WORLD!

Harry's POV

Harry felt numb as he made his way toward Gryffindor Tower. He past the warmth of the common room and trudged upstairs. The sight of the dorm with five beds adorned with red and yellow trimmings had always given him a sense of comfort, but tonight was different. Tonight he could only sense a dark and empty pit.

He hadn't told anyone, not even Ron, but Professor Everpine's stay here had caused him to start dreaming of a new family. Sirius, once he was cleared, would walk into Hogwarts to personally thank every person who had ever been kind to his only godson. He would stop as soon as he entered DADA and marvel at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Looking up from doing paperwork, soft brown eyes would meet milky blue. That moment would be the beginning of a relationship and (soon enough) marriage. Harry would live with them in a nice two story house and play with his little godsiblings as Sirius worked as an Auror, stopping every Dark Wizard that crossed his path, while the professor stopped teaching to pursue the life of a stay at home mum.

Now the shattered pieces of his secret dream dissolved into the nothingness of melancholy, all because he saw that memory. It was clear from the tearful gleam of hatred in her eyes that the blonde wouldn't give his godfather the time of day.

The raven barely noticed the tears creating tracks down his cheeks as his head hit the pillow.

-LINE BREAK-

Quidditch practice the next morning did little to distract Harry. Luckily, the meeting was to discuss strategy against the Ravenclaws and didn't involve flying. Being up in the air while distracted could end with a missing limb. Still, it lasted two hours.

"Harry," Hermione said in a worried tone as he sat down across from her to eat. "Is there something wrong?"

Ron cast a worried glance at his mate. He swallowed before saying, "Yeah, mate. You look like a troll ran over your cat." Hermione glared at him and mouthed 'not helping' as the raven tried to think of an excuse that his observant friends (read: Hermione) would buy.

How could he explain himself, though? He himself didn't understand why this was upsetting him so much. He loved Sirius, he supposed, so it was understandable that he wanted to live with him, but…

Harry stopped his train of thought as what just went through his head sunk in. He supposed? Whatever made him think that? Of course he loved his godfather. The man was nice to him (but not many others, come to think of it), they spent a lot of time together (even if the older man would call him by his father's name more often than not), Sirius even told him so many things about his parents!

Oh. Oh! He got it! He didn't love Sirius. In fact, he barely knew him, really. What he loved was hearing stories about his parents being great people. However, if there's one thing he learned from spending time around Padma, it's that every story had two completely different sides. To actually know more about his mum and dad, he would have to learn about when they weren't so great. That would be harder said than done, though. People didn't often speak ill of the dead. Suddenly, a thought came to the dark haired boy.

"I have detention with Snape tonight."

"What?!" Ron shouted, earning a few nasty looks from their housemates. "What for? We haven't even had potions yet today!" The glasses-clad boy only shrugged in response and continued eating.

-LINE BREAK-

That afternoon, Harry headed towards the potion professor's bed chamber. Classes had ended an hour ago, so he was confident that the man was there. Nearing the door, however, he heard a feminine voice. Teenage curiosity getting the better of him, he pressed his ear to the door.

"I don't know what to do, Severus!" came a distressed voice (which Harry recognized as his DADA professor), muffled through the wood. "Harry… What if he hates me now? I can't believe I let him break my barrier. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Footsteps were heard from the room. There was no reply, so the woman continued. "Sirius is supposed to be his godfather; he'll stand by him. Though, it must be hard to love a man who was convicted for killing you're parents." A response the raven couldn't quite make out followed, causing the footsteps to stop.

Cassie's POV

She stared at her friend, not able to believe what he just said. Peter? Sweet Peter? How could anyone think that, that guy work for a criminal?

Cassie contemplated setting the paper in front of her on fire. She hated homework, especially when she was terrible at the subject of it. Taking Ancient Runes was probably the worst decision of her life! A hand patted her shoulder, breaking her thoughts and causing her to look up.

A slightly overweight boy with sandy hair stood behind her, smiling; she didn't recognize him, but he was wearing Gryffindor apparel, so that wasn't so strange. The blonde rarely talked to lions on a daily basis. Lily was the only exception, had been since the day Severus introduced them. She chose Divination and Astronomy as her electives, though, so the amount of red and gold in Cassie's third year had been scarce so far.

"Hullo," he said with a friendly tone. At her confused look, he continued, "Peter Pettigrew. Need some help? My mother's brilliant at Ancient Runes, and she talks about it often, so I know quite a bit."

They weren't close by any means. They just helped each other with various assignments and engaged in small talk some. He told her he was trying to become an animungus for his transfiguration mastery, she told him she was a dark witch, nothing too personal. Still, thinking of him as a murderer was almost laughable.

I know it's short. I'll update soon...ish.