Ravenclaw flattened Hufflepuff in their Quidditch Cup match at the end of the month, meaning Slytherin still had a pretty good chance of winning the cup — but the point difference in Ravenclaw's favour meant that Aurora's team had been bumped down to second.

"We can take Ravenclaw easy, though," Flint said at dinner afterward, having gathered all the time at one end of the table for a chat. "They've got a new Seeker - Cho Chang. She's good, but I reckon Malfoy or Black could beat her."

Draco scowled at this, poking cooked carrots with his fork. "Cheer up," Aurora told him as encouragingly as she could. He just glowered in response and she sighed. Cassius caught her eye and arched a quizzical brow but she just shook her head. "I know you can take Chang."

"I know you know," he said, but still didn't seem to have much of an appetite.

They had... not quite reconciled, but were instead skirting around one another. Honestly, Aurora was getting rather bored of it. Neither was being outwardly hostile to the other, but things were stilted from the lack of communication — not that Aurora knew what she was supposed to communicate anyway. At least Pansy was a bit easier to talk to now — but she wasn't Draco.

She had tried to keep out of Potter's way, but it was difficult. He seemed determined to get in her way, especially after the Gryffindor Team lost their Quidditch appeal, and she wasn't going to let him insult her without at least saying something back. Potter was now trying to perfect the art of muttering under his breath when she was around. Whether he was commenting on how she had gotten an A in Potions instead of an E, and therefore wasn't 'so great after all' or boldly claiming in Care of Magical Creatures that she had cheated, backed up by Weasley saying she never would have beaten their golden boy otherwise, it soon got old and it grated on her enormously. She would lash out in response - 'embarrassing, really, how obsessed with me you are' and 'don't let that flobberworm get the better of you now, I think I see the snitch'.

He found any excuse he could to glare at her across the classroom. Theodore agreed with Aurora's theory that he was embarrassed about what happened, and specifically that she had been the one to stop him breaking his neck, and so was taking it out on her, but Aurora also got the feeling that he'd just found an excuse to have a go at her, and was being egged on by Weasley; Granger, for her part, sat to the side and fretted, but didn't actually do anything of note.

With the end of term coming up fast, Aurora put her efforts into schoolwork. Over the holidays, she knew there were many things she had to do — meeting with Kreacher to run their own inspection of the Black family properties, aided by Andromeda, as well as working on facing Dementors with Dora. Some nights though, she kept having awful dreams. Despite the Dementors' distance from her, at the gates of the castle, the memory they had unlocked from her ran over and over again in her nightmares. Sometimes it was accompanied by the blurry movement of a woman whose face she could never recall in the mornings. But it was one she felt she ought to know.

"What do we have here, little blood traitor?"

"Sirius, they're going to kill her—"

"...wonder if we can see the mud in her blood..."

"Marlene, no—"

"Go, Sirius, you have to go, get Aurora out of here—"

"—I love you—"

Phantom pain would greet her when she woke, burning in her heart. She never liked the final words from her father — they stuck in her head, made it hard to breathe, because she didn't understand how they could be true. She didn't want to believe that they were, because that gave her far too many questions.

She replayed her mother's words in her head. They made her sick, and yet she couldn't stop herself thinking of it. She had had a family, a massive one, but one by one they all died, one by one they all left her. Sometimes — a lot of the time — it was her father's fault, and sometimes she just blamed the world. She counted the names in her head. Walburga. Orion, Regulus. Cygnus, Druella, Pollux, Irma. Melania. Arcturus. Lucretia, Ignatius.

Marlene McKinnon.

Then she counted the list of those still with her. Narcissa. Andromeda. Draco. Dora. It was too short and too painful to think of.

And she couldn't help but feel, too, that Draco was slipping away. And that it was her fault for not knowing how to fix it.

One thing did cheer her up, if only a little. The promise of a Hogsmeade weekend at the end of term, just before the Christmas holidays. This year, unlike last, she would be going home to the Tonkses for Christmas and spending the two weeks there. While she didn't expect it to feel normal, and was despite herself a little bit nervous, she had to admit it would be nice to have a Christmas with family. She hadn't had one of those since she was eleven.

As such, she spent much of the week leading up to the end of term trying to decide on presents to get her friends and the Tonkses. They had to be good, especially because Dora had promised she would help Aurora learn how to deal with Dementors, and that was not something to be taken lightly. She'd have to pick up all the gifts in Hogsmeade, and intended to do a little bit of personal shopping too. The day before, she settled on a list of gifts to get, and clutched it tightly as she made her way down into the village with Gwendolyn and Theodore and Robin, who had been on and off bickering about the state of their dorm room all morning.

"So, we'll meet at the Three Broomsticks at three o'clock?" Aurora said, taking charge as they all stood together. "That ought to give everyone time to buy gifts."

They all nodded and split up. Theodore headed first to Honeydukes, Gwen and Robin in the direction of the lane of bookshops that hung off from the Main Street. Aurora grinned and headed towards Dervish and Banged. Her list to buy for wasn't too long. She wasn't really on good terms with Draco but still wanted to get him a present, as was tradition, and decided she ought to pick up something for Gwen, Pansy, Theodore and Robin too.

Dora was relatively easy to buy for. In addition to the abundance of chocolate she intended to get her at Honeydukes, she picked up some easy-attach patches for her favourite denim jacket — a couple Holyhead Harpies ones, a couple Weird Sisters ones, and one, regrettably, with a badger on it, just because she know Dora and Ted would get a laugh out of the idea of Aurora having to buy that — and a funny sort of device which played rock music if she turned the dial one way, and a strange, precarious mix of either swing or country if she turned it the other. Buying for Ted was considerably more difficult, and she thought she might have more luck picking out a scarf or hat at the clothing shop next door, though she did get him a sleek diary which could be folded small enough to fit in the smallest of pockets, as over the summer he was constantly complaining about setting notes down on tables or the tops of drawers and forgetting where he had put them.

Draco gave her trouble too, simply because she didn't even know if they were giving each other Christmas presents that year. They were frosty at best, and prone to snapping at one another over tiny things. Neither had apologised and after her first attempt had gone so badly, Aurora didn't want to be the one to try again. But custom did dictate that they got each other something. The soft leather Seeker gloves she got him would either go down really badly if he thought she was making a jab, or really well if he thought — correctly — that she was trying to remind him of her faith in his abilities.

Next was the clothing store, where she bought a matching hat and scarf set for Ted — light yellow and pale, soft grey — and a pretty set of silver drop earrings for Andromeda. She also eyed, for her own interests, a really lovely, deep red velvet cloak — but perhaps she could save that for the trip after Christmas.

For Gwendolyn and Theodore she went into a stationery and book shop, knowing the latter would appreciate a book as a safe option. Gwen was a bit trickier, but Aurora eventually settled on getting her a nice journal with a snake-skin cover, and then a book about Divination for Theodore.

The shopkeeper looked wary of Aurora as she approached and didn't seem to believe she had the correct money for everything as she paid. He gave her a grudging smile and then frowned. "Don't I recognise you?"

"No," she said sharply, gathering Gwen's gift into her bag and holding out her hand for her change. "Don't think so."

He didn't look convinced as he handed over the seven sickles' change, and he kept watching as she left the shop, quickly making her way through the Honeydukes store, setting aside sugar quills for Gwen, liquorice wands for Pansy and Theodore, chocolate frogs for Draco and Robin, and then a host of fancier chocolates and toffees for the Tonkses. She was torn between what else to get for Robin, if she should even get him anything, and was about to head towards Zonko's when something ran in front of her path.

That great black dog. She frowned and pushed her bags further back on her arm, bending down to pat his head. "You're still here, boy?" she asked, and the dog licked her hand in response. Gross. She pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her hand, but the dog barked loudly and wagged its tail. "What do you want? I haven't got any food for you."

The dog's eyes looked wide and pleading. It raised a paw as if in greeting, then turned and seemed to point along a narrow street that led to the edge of the village and the forest. "What?" Aurora peered along the dark street, and a feeling of great foreboding swept over her. "What is it?"

The dog barked again, and tried walking away, but stopped when she didn't follow. Confused, Aurora watched it trot back to her. "Hey," she said quietly, scratching its neck, "What's wrong, boy?"

It leapt forward and tore a Honeydukes bag from her arm, running back down the little steet.

"Hey!"

Aurora leapt up furiously and ran after the dog. This was why she preferred cats - dogs were mad, and crazy, and stole her Christmas presents. Bloody horrible things. So undignified.

"Come back here, boy! Come back!" She whistled, but that did her no good, and she had to keep running after the stupid thing into the forest before it finally stopped in a small clearing. Covered in a snowfall that seemed to stifle all sound, it felt quite isolated from the village. It occurred to Aurora then that there was no one else around, and she was quite alone with a feral dog. It was not one of her best moves.

In fact, it was positively stupid, and she would have kicked herself if she hadn't been preoccupied trying to get her shopping bags back.

"Here, boy," she said as commandingly as she could given her rising fear. "Give that back to me now, you've had your fun. There's nothing in that for you." The dog just seemed to grin and wag its tail. "Drop it." Almost mockingly, then dog did so, and then took a few steps back, watching her with wide pale eyes. Eyes that, for a fleeting moment, she recognised. Her heart pounded. Those eyes were just like her grandmother's eyes. Aurora edged forward nervously to take the bag back. She felt suddenly sick. She had to get out of there. Blood rushed in her ears.

"Good dog," she said in a shrill voice as she closed her hand around the strap of the bag. "Don't do that again."

She had taken two steps back when there was a loud growl and all of a sudden, a pop, and there was not a dog before her but a ragged-looking man with long, matted black hair and mad grey eyes that were boring straight at her. She let out a cry of shock and dropped her bags, hurrying back. Her heart leapt into her throat — she could hardly think for the ice cold, numbing fury that spread through her at the sight of his face. The face she hated to know.

"You."