No excuse for the delay, but have no fear, I am not going to let this one languish forever! Miranda spends (some) time at Hogwarts and Harry makes a shocking revelation.

"No." Miranda stared. Not a word she was accustomed to hearing since her childhood had finally passed.

"I…"

"No, Miss Riddle." Snape snapped at her.

"But I…"

His glower intensified as he cut her off again, "So long as you are on school grounds, you will abide by the rules set forth long before either of us existed." He seemed to grow a few inches taller as he spoke his next words, "Hogwarts students are not permitted to brew potions in their dormitories. Should you desire to exercise your potion skills, you are welcome to do so in the potions lab, where you can be supervised by a professor."

Miranda continued to stare, processing his words and how impossible they were to abide by. Draco clapped a hand on her shoulder, "Oh, don't worry, Headmaster Snape, Miranda has been…"

"So be it." Miranda finally blurted out, stomping on Draco's foot to get him to stop talking.

Snape wasn't going to bend the rules for her. Not that she would have expected anyone to. Unfortunately she'd fallen victim to a habit so often Walburga's downfall, not bothering to research rules and just pushing bullishly ahead. No smarmy words from Draco, apparently the Headmaster's favorite, were going to be enough to change Snape's mind. He would also no doubt be sending the Carrow woman in to the girl's dormitory to check to make sure she wasn't brewing anything at all.

Without another word, Miranda stalked back to the dungeons, slipped in to her new shared room, and pulled her stock of remaining potions from her trunk. It was no where near enough. She had assumed incorrectly that she would be able to continue to brew them and to prepare for the future with less scrutiny at the school than she had at Malfoy Manor. She had planned on taking the potions she had through the process of combining them into one vial, something that made it easier to transport them throughout the day. Without that ability, she barely had enough to get her through the end of January, taking individual vials as needed for sniffles and coughs. There wasn't enough to give herself preventative doses in the lofty castle, but she would survive. She could limp the antidote to Veritaserum along for a bit longer if she took smaller doses and hoped they would be enough to help her fight keeping her secrets. Her most profound issue, however, was the short supply of Dreamless Sleep.

Striding back into the Slytherin Common Room she snagged Draco from the gaggle of girls he had been talking to, dragging him to a vacant corner, "Draco, what precautions exist to help students who sleepwalk? Surely I can't be the only one ever to come to Hogwarts."

"I don't think there are any." He answered after a moment. "There was a Hufflepuff kid a few years younger who they'd find all over in the early morning. One of his friends went and got him every time."

"Fabulous." Miranda sighed.

One evening in the first week of February, after a tiring first several weeks of classes she'd never taken before (which had both exposed some surprising strengths- Charms, as well as some profound weaknesses- non-potions related Herbology), Miranda all but tied herself to her bed. Ropes would have been too alarming to the other girls, and Pansy surely would have started some sordid rumor. For the first time in weeks, Miranda lay in bed wondering what sleep would bring her. Some days it was easy to immerse herself in the world of being a Hogwarts student. Others, she spent every minute longing to be with Harry. Avoiding Ginny and Harry's other friends absolutely killed her, but they tried to hex her every time she so much as caught their eye. She couldn't tell the truth, so there was no purpose in trying to speak with them.

She closed her eyes at last.

Her dream opened in an unfamiliar forest.

She stood slowly, curious that Harry wasn't immediately visible as he usually was.

He was behind her. "Miranda?" A hand trailed down the back of her head, and Harry muttered something about sleep under his breath before wrapping his arms around her, ducking his head into the nape of her neck. She let herself sink back into him, bringing her scarred palm up to his forehead, relishing in the spark of magic before she buried her hand in his messy hair.

Harry hummed in approval, kissing and sucking on the side of her neck.

"I missed you." He whispered against her skin, giving her a tight squeeze before urging her to turn to face him. The smile on his face warmed her whole being, and even the magic she'd come to recognize as the obscurus seemed pleased. "It's been weeks."

Miranda nodded, admitting, "I wander when I sleep alone." She tucked herself into his chest, listening to her own memory of his heartbeat, "It's not safe."

"We're together." Harry whispered, kissing the top of her head.

Miranda tipped her face up to him, not able to stop the smile that came to her face at the sight of his. "For now. Let's make the most of it."

It seemed different that time, as if deep down Miranda remembered this was the last time she could indulge in such a dream. He really seemed like he missed her as much as she had missed him.

Harry paused above her, staring at her while deep in her body.

"Harry?" Miranda groaned, bucking her hips up into his.

He gave her a chaste kiss, resuming the gentle rock of his hips as he spoke, "I wish we'd been able to have more time."

"Me too." Miranda gasped as he hit a particularly wonderful spot inside of her. "There's so much…I wanted to tell you."

She felt his hand on her cheek, and opened eyes she didn't remember closing. "Don't cry." Harry demanded, wiping tears from her face, "You were it. Nothing you had to tell me will ever change that."

It seemed odd to be having such a conversation while in the middle of sex, but Miranda supposed her brain was trying to multitask. Although it was very 'Harry' to be this kind of awkward. It was endearing. "I love you." Miranda told him, trembling as her body reacted to the steady movement of his.

Harry reached between them and rubbed her clit a few times, just enough to send her over the edge as he spilled himself inside of her. They lay entwined as time passed, breathless and staring into one another's eyes. Harry slipped from her body after a while, but neither one of them made a move to leave the bubble of love they had found themselves in.

At least not until the sun began to rise.

"I need to go." Miranda whispered, feeling as if the sunrise in her dream meant dawn in reality, pulling away with regret coloring her every feature.

Harry grabbed her arm, forcing her to look back at him, the last button on her nightgown forgotten, "Miranda, one day, we'll be together again. It can be like this always."

"That would be a dream." She replied, heart aching as she awoke standing outside the Gryffindor tower. Miranda stood still for a while, wondering why her core ached when she was no where near a supposed monthly. Her last had been the last week of January, and she wasn't expecting another for at least two more weeks.

Before she could ponder her aches any longer, Draco skid to a halt in front of her, speaking low enough that even in his agitation, he wasn't loud enough to stir the Fat Lady from her slumber, "There you are! Everyone else should be up soon, and we need to get…"

Miranda noted that he'd stopped talking, "You're a Prefect, Draco, there's no need to be so fussy. I'm not the first person to sleepwalk."

Draco was staring at her in horror.

"What?" Miranda asked, exasperated.

"You have a…love bite on your neck." He stuttered, face scrunched up.

"What?" She repeated, stunned, bringing her hands up to cover her throat.

Draco dragged her to a mirror halfway down the hall. "Look."

There was no denying the purpled mark that marred the left side of her neck. The same side Harry had given his attention to in the beginning of her dream. A short gasp left her as realization dawned, "They aren't dreams."

"No wonder I haven't been able to find you when you're not in your room." Draco said dryly.

She shook her head at him incredulously, "How would you even…?"

"Pansy." He said simply, staring weirdly at her. "So you've been sneaking out of the castle to shag Potter, but…you thought they were sleep walking dreams. Wicked."

"It shouldn't be possible." Miranda said breathlessly, wringing her hands together.

Draco scoffed, "You're bloody hell right it shouldn't. This castle is warded against all sorts of magic, and since your brother took over the school, no one can get out without permission. Snape and the Carrows should have been alerted the instant anyone tried."

Memory of a life long laid to rest spun her into cold terror and one of the darkest revelations of her life. The unusual way her magic worked, how anger and fear made her feel like she was falling apart, and something Hermione had read to them one night in the forest. So many insignificant pieces that had only one real solution. She thought she'd understood the magnitude of her powers. She was wrong. She had been too afraid to do much research, but the time for that fear had passed. A book by one Newt Scamander had to help.

Draco hardly kept up with her as she rushed to the library, blowing right through to the restricted section. "Burga said her family had donated another copy from the original publication that had additional entries that the next publications were lacking." Miranda said in an attempt at explanation when he dragged her to a stop.

"What? What book?" He asked, still confused. Miranda waved a dismissive hand at him, scouring the shelves until she found the tome she was looking for.

Draco was positively incensed, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? For Merlin's sake, Miranda, I've got a copy in my room. Sure there's one in your trunk too! The Restricted Section? Really?"

Miranda sunk to the floor, book in hand, and flipped the book open, skimming through the pages. She was disappointed, "Really? I'm a living example, and there's just one bloody paragraph." Miranda tossed the volume, staring at the ceiling as it skittered across the floor and a nearby book moaned menacingly.

Draco settled down next to her, "I'm tired of saying 'What', but…what?"

"It's me. My magic. The Obscurus. I miss Harry, so it's taking me to him. Physically, not just in a dream." Miranda told him softly, aware that they could be discovered at any moment. "I'd hoped the original copy might have more information, seeing as he was the supposed expert, but it doesn't." His confounded expression had her explaining to him about the creature that lived inside of her.

"So…you want to shag Potter so much, you are using a deadly parasitic creature to go see him? Bloke must have more going for him than I thought." Draco drawled finally, the edges of a smile playing on his face, as though he were attempting not to chortle.

Miranda resisted the urge to grab a book and smack him with it. "It's not amusing, Draco. It's dangerous. I've worked hard, keeping myself in control. I never thought about what happens when I'm asleep. But I'm not in control, not then. This thing, this obscurus, can take me out of one of the most heavily warded fortresses in the world undetected, across who knows how many miles, through the wards I know Hermione to have painstakingly erected, and right back. I could lead my brother right to them."

Draco shrugged, "Yeah, I could see how that might be a problem." He smiled incredulously again, "Potter has to be absolutely hung."

"It has to stop, Draco. I can't put them in danger." Miranda hissed, standing quickly.

Draco pulled her back down, "Well, how do you suppose we go about that?"

"Dreamless Sleep. It worked before, I didn't see him for weeks."

His pale eyes rolled towards her, "We've gone over this. We can't get any, and can't make it, not without Snape or the Carrows asking questions you don't fancy answering."

The hint of a solution suddenly hit Miranda, "Not us. Pansy."

Draco visibly recoiled, "Pansy? Have you ever seen her at a cauldron?" Miranda thought for a moment, and shook her head slowly, "Exactly, she's a menace. I mean, she's almost worse than Finnegan. Snape pulled her off of actually making potions years ago. He couldn't have a Slytherin with the lowest Potions scores, so she observes instead, or sometimes she brews something in the back of the second years' Potions slot."

Miranda took a long breath in, and shook her head slightly, "No, she's still our best option. She's your only friend loyal to you with half a brain." He looked offended at her categorization, but she continued, "Next week, the potion the second years are brewing shares some of the same ingredients as Dreamless Sleep. If she does it right, someone like Slughorn wouldn't even notice."

"If she does it right." Draco echoed pointedly.

"Well you're not denying you'll get her to do it." Miranda whispered, a smile attempting to come to her face, "I will write VERY explicit instructions. There's no way she could get it wrong."

"Now that's a challenge." Draco said with a grimace, standing and holding a hand out to Miranda, "Pans will love it. Though if she blows the school up, I suppose neither one of us has to worry about the futures we won't have, so that will be a blessing."

"I can never tell if you are a glass half-full or half-empty bloke." Miranda declared dryly.

The next problem, of course, was staying awake for the next three nights. The first was easy. Miranda worked on her course work, failing at her Herbology assignment. (She was used to plucking plants for potions, not finding ways to keep them alive.) The second night did not go nearly as well, and by the third Miranda could feel the creature inside of her raring to be set free to right whatever wrong it thought was being done to her. Miranda didn't care that it meant she'd miss a half day of classes, because when Draco and a dusty Pansy arrived with several filled potion vials, Miranda took enough to keep her out until the next morning.

Pansy was hovering by her bed when she woke up, and looked all too relieved to see her, "Oh, good, Draco can stop having a fit." Miranda sat up, blinking sleepily at the other girl, "He was sure I buggered it up and tipped you in to a coma."

"How long was I asleep?" Miranda asked.

Pansy rolled her eyes, "Just since yesterday afternoon. Draco really should have more faith in his friends. Did it work?" Something in Pansy's face softened, "You could have told us you have bad nightmares."

Ah, so that had been Draco's explanation. "Thank you, Pansy. I slept wonderfully."

That was the beginning of her unexpected friendship with Pansy Parkinson. They weren't actually friends, per say, but now at least one other person wasn't too afraid of her brother to talk to her. It made day to day life a bit easier, especially since she didn't have her…dream…sleep-magicking sessions with Harry to look forward to.

Naturally, Pansy used the new found situation to her advantage. Draco didn't need Miranda's help with schoolwork, in fact he helped her with herbology as best as he could, but Pansy…the girl was an academic mess. Far more interested in snogging as many boys in corners as possible, Pansy wasn't just bad at potions.

Between Pansy and Draco, Miranda was more than occupied enough to distract herself from Harry, her brother, and the continued chatter about her victim in Godric's Hollow.

Harry jerked awake, gasping for breath, panicking for a minute before he remembered where he was, back in a campsite in the middle of nowhere with his two best friends. With his trousers unzipped…hearing movement from inside the tent he shoved himself back into his pants. What in the world was wrong with him? His dream of Miranda was lovely and he wished it had continued, but he couldn't just be whipping his dick out in the middle of the night in his sleep. Ron would never let him hear the end of it.

"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, peering at him from the opening of the tent. "I thought I heard something."

He shook his head, wondering why he was at the edge of the clearing and not by the opening to the tent. "Nah, I'm fine."

"Can't believe you fell asleep, again." Ron said brushing past Hermione to join Harry. "We should sack you from guard duty."

Hermione joined them, putting the back of her hand on Harry's forehead. "You don't feel warm. Was it another vision?"

"No." Harry told her honestly, "It was Miranda."

Hermione tucked herself into his side, "Oh, Harry." She chose to distract him, "I was thinking more about the Hallows last night, but I just can't think of how they're anything but a myth."

"But so was the Chamber of Secrets." Harry said.

"Yeah, and don't we know of one already?" Ron added.

Hermione fixed him with a dark look, "And what, would that be, Ronald?"

"Harry's Invisibility Cloak." He said simply.

"Well even if that's true, nothing can bring back the dead." She said stiffly.

Harry's mind drifted back to Miranda, "What about the girl in the story? The second brother brought her back. If I had the Resurrection Stone I could bring..."

"No, Harry, you couldn't bring Miranda back. Remember what else the story said? The dead belong with the dead. Even if you did bring her back, she'd be miserable. She wouldn't be the same." Hermione said, feeling Harry's pain at the loss of their friend. She gave him a familial squeeze before standing again.

Harry tried to shrug it off, "Did you find anything on the Peverell bloke in Godric's Hollow? I kept forgetting to ask with everything that's gone on these last few weeks."

Hermione huffed in frustration, "No, I've only been able to find the name in Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. It was a pureblooded family, but it is extinct in the male line. The book said it was one of the earliest families where the name totally died out."

"No." Harry said, feeling distinctly hollow. "Marvolo Gaunt." Everything was fitting together in his mind. Why Miranda's face had seemed so familiar in the beginning, everything about the Horcruxes. How his very soul seemed to recognize hers. It all made sense. She had claimed not to know why Voldemort had made her locket a Horcrux, but he knew now. The witch they'd heard about on the radio, on His side but killing Death Eaters. It fit. And the knowledge threatened to eat him alive.

"What?" Ron asked, "Mate, what did you say?"

"Marvolo Gaunt, You-Know-Who's grandfather said he was descended from the Peverells in the Pensieve with Dumbledore. He was showing off the ring that became the Horcrux. He said it was a family heirloom." He said quietly.

"Okay, that's fantastic." Ron said cautiously, not understanding Harry's sudden mood change. "What's that got you so gloomy about? It was just a ring."

"Miranda." He said, not feeling anything anymore, the shock of his internal revelation overwhelming him. He dug in his satchel for a few seconds, his fingers closing around the chain of the locket. "She said this had been her mother's. She said it was a family heirloom. It was a Horcrux too. He only chooses things that are important him. Why would he have chosen her locket?" He conjured an image of Miranda's painfully beautiful face into the air.

"Harry, I don't..." Hermione began before clapping her hand over her mouth in horror as Harry conjured a second picture, "No."

"What!" Ron yelled, panicking, "What's going on?"

Hermione's voice was shaking as she looked at the two faces in front of her, "Ron, do you remember what Miranda said her name was? She called herself Miranda Peverell. Look at the pictures, Ron, just look."

Hovering next to Miranda's face in the air above Harry's adoptive wand was the face of a young Tom Marvolo Riddle. "They look just alike." Ron gasped out.

Harry's face scrunched in disgust as he clenched his fists, feeling so stupid for falling into her trap, "She even told us her birthday. Bullocks!" He yelled, throwing the wand across the tent, sending the images scattering into dust. "She said her birthday was January first, nineteen twenty seven. His is December thirty-first, nineteen twenty six. She's his sister! Ron, Miranda is Voldemort's bloody twin sister!"

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-Jenn