"Wait," Alice said, "if Peter is an Animagus, shouldn't we tell the Aurors?"

"No," Hollis said, rubbing her forefinger along the edge of her thumb nail. They were clipped pretty short and she had charmed them to be neon pink weeks ago, remembering Tonks with fondness. There were only flecks of the spell left and she suspected they'd be gone before the week was out.

"Why not?" Remus asked a little suspiciously.

"I cast a spell on him last night that locked his ability," Hollis said.

Perhaps now that she had more time, she could get her nails properly done. That would be nice, she mused. She never really had before, but she could remember Hermione talking about going to get them done with her mum out in the Muggle world, and Lavender and Parvarti experimenting with spells and Muggle products in the evenings. It could make the whole dorm reek sometimes; Hermione and Hollis had gotten very good at air freshening charms early on.

"I didn't even know there was a spell for that," James murmured, glancing at Sirius.

"Who taught you?" Lily asked curiously.

"Severus," Hollis said, keeping her voice perfectly even and indifferent. Her eyes flickered to Alice's face for a second. Alice's brown eyes were warm wells of sympathy, but she managed to blanket the expression before anyone else caught it.

"You were on a first name basis with that git?" Sirius said, lip curling with disdain.

"Sirius," Alice said with a look as Hollis shoved down her temper and worked to keep her face flat.

"What?" he snapped back at Alice.

"He's a good man, Sirius Black," Hollis said coldly. Alice winced. "And yes, he is - was - one of the better friends I had."

"Was?" Lily said. Her face creased with concern. "As in, he's…?"

"Well, it's not like the Severus I knew is around, is he? And even when he gets to the time I came from, he won't be the same - world wars tend to change people," Hollis said, shrugging again. She tightened her Occlumency shields against her emotions.

It wasn't healthy, and it wasn't advised, but it was the quickest and easiest way to get herself under control. She wouldn't tell anyone else any more of her secrets than necessary; she wouldn't let on that Severus had been much more than a friend to her. They didn't need to know, and she didn't want them to know. That was the sort of secret you told a friend, and she couldn't make friends out of them, not now and possibly not ever.

"I see," Lily said softly. "I'm sorry."

Hollis gave another shrug - how many of those could a person give in a day? - and they fell silent for a long moment.

"Thank you for telling us," James eventually said. "About Peter, that is."

"You're welcome. Now, I'm going to...go," she said, standing and vanishing her chair.

"Go where?" Alice asked.

"I don't know. Maybe scope out some prices or whatever," Hollis said, then half-smiled in a way she knew was not altogether comforting to Alice or the others. "I just realized – I can walk down the street without a single person recognizing me. Better yet, I can do it without a single Death Eater knowing who I am – or what I can do and what I know about them."

That could be extremely handy and possibly even fun, she thought. She could already think of a half a dozen different ways to use it to her advantage, even if she'd likely not implement them before taking out Voldemort. As much as she wanted and needed to change the future, she couldn't change it that much yet.

But it would be nice to not be a target for once.

Even before she learned about magic, she hadn't been anonymous. People had bowed to her in the streets. One notable wizard had toppled over at the sight of her. She hadn't understood any of it, of course, but in this time…she could be anyone, do anything. Only a handful of people knew there was something strange about her.

"Don't go about asking for a fight," Alice said with a worried look.

"I never ask for fights," Hollis said.

Which was mostly true.

"Somehow, I'm not at all reassured," Alice said dryly. "Seriously though, Grey - keep a low profile. Frank would probably bail you out if you end up getting arrested, but they've got a lot of weight politically and so on. You could get in serious trouble for assaulting them."

"You've got a fair point," Hollis allowed. By the time she had been deeply involved, politics had very little to do with anything. She'd never really had to worry about that before. "Though not all of them have the clout Malfoy and his ilk do, and I only have to worry if I get caught. That and with the dirt I have on them, they really wouldn't want me on a trial or whatever. And, honestly, I never said that's what I'm going to do. It just happened to occur to me and I voiced it."

Hollis gave Alice her best reassuring smile.

"Is this one of those plausible deniability things?" Alice asked suspiciously anyway.

Hollis smiled more naturally, amused and delighted by her caution. "Enjoy your playdate. I'll be back around noon. Is that alright?"

Alice sighed, but said, "Yes, that will be perfect."

"May I come with?" Sirius surprised them all by speaking up. "I have more questions."

"Can't say I'll answer them, but you may accompany me," Hollis said, almost immediately wary.

No one else said anything, so she gestured for him to lead the way and nodded to the others, giving them a half wave.

Sirius stood and circled around Remus, who was looking up at him with a veiled, thoughtful gaze. Sirius ignored him and headed for the door on the right. He wore dark jeans that were worn in all the right spots, a black shirt that hugged his lean but muscular frame, and he shrugged into a leather jacket that accentuated his broad shoulders and aristocratically handsome face. His hair was pulled back with a leather tie and his boots were scuffed.

Hollis could now better understand why Sirius had the reputation he did as a ladies' man. Just about every girl she had known would've been dying to get a piece of him. Perhaps she might have, had she been someone else, had she met him in this time like a normal person. If she hadn't known Severus as well as she had.

As it was, all she could really think was that his skin was too tanned and his grey eyes too pale. And his nose didn't have that little crook in it from being broken and healed Muggle style when he was ten. There wasn't a thin scar across part of his face from one of Bellatrix Lestrange's knives when she finally went completely crazy and ended up having to be put down like a mad dog.

He was...just Sirius, the young twenty-something version of her godfather, all lean youth and confidence.

The brisk, cold air that rushed in when he opened the door snapped her from her comparison. She squinted against the light reflecting off the snow and closed the door behind her.

"So where to?" Sirius asked, approaching the motorcycle that clearly belonged to him. It was beautiful - sleek and a deep scarlet red, the kind with the glittery shine to it. But Hollis had no intention of going anywhere on the bike.

"I've got to see an old friend," Hollis said, walking past the bike and heading for the church cemetery down the way.

"Uh...okay," Sirius said, starting after her. His footsteps seemed abnormally loud in the quiet. There was no one else about, which Hollis didn't particularly mind. "I didn't think you really knew anyone outside of us. In this time, I mean. Who are we going to see?"

"Ignotus," she answered.

"Who?"

"Ignotus Peverell. He's dead, Sirius. I'm visiting his grave."

Sirius gave her a flat, unamused look.

"You have nearly two hours of time to do whatever you want and you're going to spend it in a graveyard?" he asked.

Hollis felt faintly exasperated as she crossed under the kissing gate. "I never said I was spending the whole two hours there and the dead should be remembered."

Merlin knew she knew enough of them, even if they weren't dead yet.

She headed towards where she remembered her ancestor's grave being, scanning each headstone carefully. Sirius followed along, deliberately too silent, though she didn't acknowledge it. Finally, she reached Ignotus' headstone and traced her fingers over the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. She had once thought they were going to be the solution to the war, but they hadn't been. Still, it was incredible knowing that they were real and within her grasp, should she want them. Her own cloak was, as always, in one of the hidden pockets inside her coat, so that, at least, had made the jump back with her.

"I think James is one of his direct descendants," Sirius mentioned, breaking his silence.

"I know," she said.

"How? Tracing lineage that far back isn't something most people do anymore. At least if they're not purebloods and you don't strike me as a pureblood."

Hollis looked at him quizzically. "What makes you say that?"

Sirius shrugged. "You just don't."

Hollis considered that and decided it was something to ponder later. "I know about James' heritage because most of the Sacred Twenty-Eight have one of the three Peverells somewhere in their family trees," Hollis said, going back to his original question. "Also, I knew Hollis. She's a cute baby."

She waved her wand like Hermione had ages ago and made a wreath of white roses, laying it on Ignotus' grave.

"What is she like?"

"I don't know," Hollis said, and thought perhaps it was the truest thing she had said all morning. "She'll be growing up with her parents and godfather this time, won't she? She won't see all the things that everyone in my time did. She won't have to go through the same things. Might not even have the same friends. She'll be shaped differently into – I hope – a happier and more...sheltered sort of person."

Sirius looked troubled by this and mulled on it on their way out of the graveyard and half way back down the street.

"I see your point," he finally said. "But what was she like? In your time?"

"Alive, which was more than most could say," Hollis said simply. "I'm not describing her further. You'll learn all about her as she grows up, the way you should."

"Did you tell Alice about Neville? You two seem pretty close for people who only just met," Sirius said, watching her intently.

"A little bit," Hollis said. "But that was a different situation."

"How?"

"It just was," she said.

She had been exhausted and not in the best mental state. She'd just buried Severus, something Alice was there for. And Alice had come after her, insisting on helping – though it was probably also to keep an eye on her. Maybe she had felt like she owed Alice something. Maybe Hollis felt like Alice had been there, at a time when Hollis was incredibly vulnerable whether she liked to admit it or not. And maybe she'd needed that support, needed to know that someone else was bearing witness to that moment even if Alice didn't know the extent of their situation. She wanted to keep Alice around, to give back the trust Alice had extended to her by coming with her alone.

And Hollis had loved Neville. He'd been family, in a way.

Giving his mother some sort of answer, some sort of comfort that her son was brave and brilliant and utterly kind, was something she knew he'd want.

Maybe it was all of that.

She didn't know exactly why she had answered Alice.

"Fine," Sirius said, not happy with that either but apparently dropping it. "Where are you going now?"

Truthfully, she wanted to go see Severus' grave, but she felt enough people knew about it as it was. She wasn't interested in prices of anything, honestly, and she could get most of her clothes in the Muggle world, where they were cheaper and had better variety. Plus, everything else was bound to be cheaper than the sky high prices from when she came from. So what was she going to do?

"Is that all the questions you had?" Hollis asked Sirius, a faint idea coming to mind. No one said she had to stick with Sirius the whole time. If she wanted, all she had to do was take a step back and activate the portkey on her necklace.

He considered it and she mentally sighed.

She was right. He asked at least a hundred questions, of which she answered –

"Did you know us well in the future?"

"Well enough."

And -

"Were you part of the Order in the future?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"The Order fell before I got out of Hogwarts and then the Light Army formed up and I became a part of that."

"Do you ever give detailed answers?"

"Very rarely."

A pause, then – "You must have said something to get Alice and Frank to trust you. What was it?"

"Very little and none of it your concern."

"Did you know their son?"

"Yes."

"How much older were you than him?"

"It's rude to ask that of a lady, Sirius."

By the end of it, he was thoroughly exasperated with her lack of information and she was kind of amused. A bit irritated with his persistence, but amused all the same that she could dance circles around him mentally. How far she had come from the small thirteen year old she used to be.

Technically, she didn't have to stay and endure his interrogation, but she didn't really have much else to do and visiting Severus' grave would only make her miserable, make her ache more, and as much as she wanted to see it, to be any kind of close to him, she didn't want to do that to herself when she had other things to focus on and a loose schedule to keep. And it'd be easier, she thought, to get through this with Sirius now rather than making him wait. Sirius had never had much in the way of patience as far as she knew.

Hollis ended up leading him all over Godric's Hollow during their chat, investigating and assessing the place. They had run into a few people, but hadn't really acknowledged them other than to nod. It was a nice little village, not too different from Hogsmead, really. Nearly the same set up, but with Muggle additions – like the church that housed so many witches and wizards in its graveyard. The irony made Hollis shake her head.

Texas and Maine would've liked it, though. Maybe she'd come back, bury their letters - or the ashes of their letters? - in a small corner of the cemetery. Honoring them was the least she could do for all they'd done, all they'd given.

Hollis would probably always prefer London to Godric's Hollow, though. So many places to hide, back alleys to use to lose pursuers, and a million people to get lost in if you couldn't get to the alleys. There were always people around and yet, if it was your preference, you were completely alone at the same time. Or at least, that was the way it was before the War decimated most of it.

Near the end of her two hours, she looped back around, timing it so that at precisely twelve o'clock, she was at the Potter's gate.

" - favorite color?" Sirius was saying.

"What?" Hollis said, realizing that she had started turning him out.

"What's your favorite color?" He looked perfectly serious and she frowned as they went up the path to the Potter's door.

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

"Curiosity killed the cat," she informed him, raising her brows a hair. They reached the door and she had her hand on the knob.

"But I'm not a cat, am I?" Sirius said.

"No, you strike me more as the dog sort," she said, smirking faintly. He blinked, looked unnerved for a moment, then suspicious.

"You know, don't you?" he asked, narrowing his grey eyes.

Hollis had a flashback to Anna Ather's very similar grey eyes and mentally sighed once more. She had always been fond of Anna – she was very business-like, but compassionate and she had a quick wit when there was time to spare for it. How old was Anna in this time?

"Know what?" she asked blandly, then twisted the knob and went in.

Alice looked up when the door creaked open and Grey walked in, looking indifferent. Sirius followed her in, his face like stone, and his hand shot out, clamping around her arm and yanking her hard so that she was facing him.

"What - ?" Alice started to say before the rest of it stuck in her throat.

In a few movements too quick to really understand, Grey broke free of his grasp and managed to get Sirius on his knees, his arm twisted up and behind his back, and his face was scrunched with pain. Her face was ruthlessly cold and she looked ready to snap his arm at any second.

Time seemed to stop and they all stared at her.

"Don't touch me like that. Ever," Grey said very softly as she released him.

He scrambled away from her, his eyes wide and frightened. Alice didn't blame him.

"It's a natural reaction to defend myself – you're lucky I didn't dislocate your shoulder or worse," Grey continued, her violet eyes flickering around, gauging their expressions.

Alice felt sympathy well up, replacing her own fright. Something had obviously made it her automatic response and Alice doubted she had meant to hurt Sirius or scare them.

Grey turned then without waiting for a response. She walked back out the door, shutting it quietly behind her.

"Bloody hell," James breathed out, his tense stance relaxing slightly.

"You're telling me," Sirius muttered, picking himself up off the floor and rubbing his upper arm and shoulder.

"What were you two talking about?" Lily asked.

Sirius shrugged. "Mostly it was me asking her questions and her dancing around them. She wouldn't even tell me her favorite color."

"Why would you ask that?" Remus asked.

"Just so I can say I figured out something about her," Sirius grumbled. "She just shows up out of the blue and we're supposed to - what? Take her at her word for everything? Sure, she swore she wouldn't help Voldemort, but that doesn't mean she's our friend or that we can trust her."

"Pads," Remus started.

"She's friends with Snape . Or was. Whatever. He's not exactly a squeaky clean sort of bloke, is he?"

"Perhaps not, but I trust that she trusted him because she did swear not to help Voldemort. She's on our side, Sirius, no matter how she got there or why she's doing all of this," Alice said, eyeing him shrewdly. "So what was going on that made you grab her like that?"

She might be able to get Grey to tell her – she seemed okay with sharing some stuff with her and Frank – but she wanted to hear Sirius' side of it.

Sirius' grey eyes flicked to his friends for a brief second and Alice felt suspicion stir in her, the same suspicion that had been there since hearing the story.

"Just about Peter's Animagus ability. Like where he learned it and stuff," Sirius said, meeting her gaze evenly.

Liar, she thought. It may have to do with his ability, but I'd bet anything you knew about it. You might even be one yourself. She mentioned an enormous black dog in her story, but she never said what happened to it. Only that you were there.

"Oh," she said, gathering up Neville's things. "And I guess she didn't answer and it made you mad then?"

"More or less," he said with a nod. "So I grabbed her to demand an answer and…well, we all saw how she reacted."

"Poor Grey," Alice sighed, standing and moving to pick Neville up out of the playpen. Both he and Hollis had crashed about fifteen minutes ago.

"What?" Sirius said. "She's obviously mental!"

"But what made her that way?" Alice challenged, though quietly as she didn't want to wake Neville. "She started out as normal as Hollis or Neville, but the war changed her. Do you know what a Field Marshal is?" They shook their heads. "Head of the entire army! She was in charge of everything – missions, supply lines, battles – everything. She ran it and I bet anything Voldemort targeted her because of it. She had to build those defensive reactions for her own safety. It's sad. She's only twenty something, barely older than us and yet she had all that responsibility, all those lives on her hands…"

She trailed off, thinking of what she wasn't telling them – about Severus, about Frank's description of how upset she had been over his letter to her.

Letters, she corrected mentally. It was surprising to find that out; Severus Snape, the most austere and unfriendly man she knew, had written letters to the woman he loved while spying behind enemy lines. He had kept it up for over two years and then, before either of them could confess to the other, he had been ripped away from the world. Heartwarmingly romantic and devastatingly tragic. Shakespearean but worse because it was real.

She had no idea how Grey was keeping so well composed. Alice thought she was going to snap when Sirius had insulted Snape, but she had played it off casually, seeming only like an offended friend rather than a broken hearted lover. Or almost-could've-been lover.

"Why was she made Field Marshal?" Remus wondered. "She is really young and how can anyone that young conduct a war? Particularly a war of that scale."

Alice shrugged. "I don't know, though it couldn't have been easy. It was wonderful seeing you lot, but I should go."

"Be careful, Alice," James warned her. "She may be a kind of tragic figure, but she's dangerous. How much do we really know about her?"

Alice smiled slightly. "I'll be alright, James."

He didn't look wholly convinced, but they all said warm goodbyes and Alice stepped out into the bright winter sun, spotting Grey standing just outside the small fence that ran around the Potter's yard, a few yards away from Sirius' bike.

"How'd they react?" Grey asked, glancing up at the sun as though studying the weather.

"Well, it was rather shocking," Alice said, not needing it spelled out for her to understand what Grey was referring to. "But I think they accepted it as a defensive reaction. It was, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Grey said, meeting her eyes the way Sirius had, but she looked completely sincere. "Trust me, I wouldn't intentionally do anything that would make them any more suspicious of me than they already are, and I don't like being stared at as if I'm a freak or a dangerous animal or what have you."

Alice understood the sentiment and they started slowly walking down the road, no particular destination in mind. Thank Merlin for warming charms; she didn't have to worry about Neville getting too cold.

"They don't. I pointed out where you came from, what a Field Marshal is - Frank told me - and they accepted that it was just a reaction. They'll probably be a little leery of you for a while, but they'll get over it. But why did Sirius grab your arm?"

"I may have baited him with information that he thinks is completely secret," Grey said, looking a little sheepish for the first time. "It wasn't intentionally done, per se, and I didn't expect him to grab me like that either."

"And then it went downhill."

"And then it went downhill," Grey repeated with a nod. "So where are we headed?"

"Home. The elves can keep an eye on him while he sleeps and we can go to Diagon and wherever," she said.

Grey nodded and they ducked into an alley. Alice took her hand and Apparated them closer than they had been last night. She could do so now that the wards recognized Grey as a friend. In a matter of minutes, Alice had laid Neville down and they Apparated to an alley near the Leaky Cauldron. They quickly made their way through to Gringotts, where Alice pulled out a hundred galleons, thinking it would be a good starter amount. She didn't know how much Grey needed to do whatever it was that required 'plausible deniability,' but Grey didn't ask for more, so she left it at that.

"Where first?" she asked Grey when they left the bank.

"Since we're here, we'll start here," Grey murmured, her eyes flitting everywhere.

She started walking back up the street, but instead of going to one of the main stores, she started winding her way down an alley that Alice had never been down. It was dirtier and deserted, but Grey kept walking confidently, so Alice kept following. After several minutes, Alice started hearing faint noises. As they moved closer, she realized it sounded not too dissimilar to what Diagon sounded like before the war. And then they turned the corner and she found herself gaping.

It was a whole other street!

Sure, she had known that there were other streets just off Diagon Alley – and she had been through most of them, and there was always the infamous Knockturn – but this was different.

"Welcome to Arcanus Avenue," Grey said.

A/N: so it's been three years.

truly, from the bottom of my heart...my bad, y'all.

2020 sure was something (and so has every other year since, and I'm TIRED) Hope you all have been well. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this - kudos, comments, & bookmarks all mean the world to me.

Anyone got thoughts on fem!Snape? Because I've been on such a fem!Snape kick (if you have fic recs, drop them in the comments), and also Star Wars, especially my boy Obi-Wan. And Mandalorians in general. ALSO book-binding. I'm trying to figure out how to do that, so I'll probs keep y'all posted on my endeavors. wish me luck :D