AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm aliiiive! Sorry I abandoned y'all again but with my crappy brain these things happen. Hope you're all doing well! I got Hogwarts Legacy for Christmas and after binge-playing it for like a week straight I had an intense desire to visit the fandom again. I re-read Whisper and started reading Stay...and realized I had 25 typed unpublished pages of this fic for you guys! So I figured I'd read them, get them posted, and Muses willing I will keep writing! It's probably going to take me literal years to finish this, especially since I WANT to have it go all the way through to the end of Deathly Hallows. It's going to be even longer than Whisper undoubtedly and that took me a year and a half!

Anyway, hope those who loved Freddie and Severus as much as I do are still around and will be happy to see this notification today. As always, please leave me a review if you're able! I appreciate them so much. Even when I was re-reading the fics I was checking the comments too trying to boost my own morale. Thanks and enjoy! (Also sorry if my formatting is wonky I'm trying to remember how this site works haha)

~RedPandaPrincess

Ada walked with Freddie to the Hogwarts Gate at 8:30 where the two finally had to say goodbye. They hugged each other tight and when Ada pulled away her green eyes were wet with tears.

"I'll miss you, Freddie," she said, trying to blink them away.

"Hey, don't cry," Freddie said soothingly, though there was a lump in her throat as well. "It's only a few weeks and you'll be back."

"I know it's silly," she said, choking back a sob. "What if something happens to you before then?"

"You sound like Severus," she joked weakly. "Nothing is gonna happen. The Dark Lord is laying low. And anyway even if He were running around killing people right now it's not like I'm a Muggleborn – no offense!"

"None taken," Ada said with a watery smile, then stood up straighter. "I'm not afraid of any Dark Lord. Let Him come after me, I'll show Him not to mess with Muggleborns."

"Don't talk like that, Ada," Freddie said hastily, looking around like there might be Death Eaters hiding behind the nearest tree. "You better be safe too. Be careful on your travels."

"I will be," Ada assured her and hugged her once more. "Au revoir, Freddie."

"Goodbye Adalene. I'll see you soon," she promised.

"Very soon."

Freddie walked towards the Hogsmeade train station alone, her thoughts on Ada and, unfortunately, on her parents. She wondered just how many Death Eaters had managed to avoid Azkaban or death in the last 14 years. How many of them came back when the Dark Lord called them and how many fled like Karkaroff. Did her mother's Dark Mark burn as she sat in her filthy cell in Azkaban and did she wail because she could not join Him, or was she too far gone from the dementors to even notice?

"Hiya Freddie!" said a voice, startling her from her thoughts. She had her wand out in an instant, ready to defend herself, but it was only Tonks. Tonks had whipped her wand out too but was grinning.

"Didn't mean to scare you," she said, lowering her wand. Freddie did the same. "Usually I'm not good at sneaking up on people."

"Why were you sneaking up on me?" she asked, wondering why everyone seemed intent on scaring the heck out of her recently.

"Well I wasn't trying to," she said sheepishly. "You must've been thinking some deep thoughts."

"Yeah," Freddie said with a sigh, continuing towards the train station.

"Anything I can help with?" Tonks asked cheerily, following behind her. "Boy trouble?"

"No!"

"Touchy subject," Tonks said, raising her hands innocently. "Got it."

Freddie scowled and tried to ignore her, but she found herself wondering about Tonks' lineage. At first she thought she must be Muggleborn but as Tonks started randomly changing her hair color she remembered that Metamorphmagus was a trait passed through magic families.

"What do you think of this style, does it make me look young enough?" Tonks asked, growing her pink hair to her shoulder blades. "Or is shorter better? I'm trying to look like a student."

"It's fine," Freddie replied absently. "...Hey Tonks? Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Why'd you join the Order?"

"To fight You-Know-Who, of course! Cuz he's a seriously twisted, evil person who needs to be stopped."

"Yeah, I know but – well that's not what I was trying to ask," she said uncomfortably, shaking her head.

"Just ask whatever it is, Freddie."

"Well I was just wondering...about your lineage?" she asked awkwardly.

"I'm half-blood," Tonks said with a slight edge to her voice, eyeing her with suspicion. "Does that bother you?"

"No!" Freddie replied hastily. "No, that's not why I was asking. I was just...curious, I guess. My best friend is a Muggleborn, you met her yesterday."

"Oh yeah. The French girl, Ada."

"That's right. She joined the Order so she can fight for other Muggleborns. I thought you might be, but the Metamorphmagus trait is only passed down through magical families, right?"

"That's right. So why did you join up then? I know you were in Slytherin so you're pureblood, right?"

"Yeah," she said awkwardly. "And I guess...same reason as you. To fight against the Dark Lord and help...help protect people like Ada and..."

"That boy who died?" Tonks provided.

"Daniel Byrd," she said quietly, feeling a sharp pain in her chest as she thought of him.

"It was my last year at Hogwarts. I remember how awful everyone was to you when he disappeared. And when it came out later what really happened, well, it was too late then. We'd all already graduated."

"Yeah."

"He was your best friend, wasn't he? I mean, I didn't know him personally but I heard other people saying that."

"He was," she said with a nod. "Since the first day of school pretty much. I miss him every day..."

"I know," Tonks said sympathetically. "That kind of loss, the pain never really goes away. But making new friends, that helps some."

"Yeah," Freddie said with a weak smile.

"Hey, you know, if you're a pureblood then that means we're cousins," Tonks said brightly. "My mum is a pureblood."

"Who's your mum?"

"Andromeda Tonks – she was a Black before she married my Dad."

"Andromeda Black," Freddie repeated, thinking of the book of pureblood families her uncle kept on display in Gray Manor. "As in, Narcissa Black Malfoy and Bellatrix Black Lestrange."

"Yeah, they cut mum off when she married a Muggle," Tonks said carelessly. "Mum hasn't talked to them since before I was born, even when we saw Narcissa around Diagon Alley she'd just ignore us. And Bellatrix, well, you know she's in Azkaban."

Freddie stared at Tonks, stunned. How could this bright and bubbly Hufflepuff be related to one of the most notorious Death Eaters alive?

"We've all got people in our lineage we'd rather not be related to," Tonks said with a shrug. "That doesn't mean we're bad people, you know? It just gives us a reason to be better, to fight back, and try to mitigate some of the damage they've done."

"I know exactly what you mean," Freddie said.

What Tonks had said made sense and it made her feel better after talking about her parents with Ada earlier. She thought about telling Tonks about them, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. Before she could make up her mind they had reached the station where the scarlet Hogwarts Express sat gleaming in the sunlight.

"It's been ages since I've been on the train," Tonks said happily as they approached. "Brings back a lot of memories, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," she agreed, thinking of all the years she and Daniel rode the train to school together – and the last year that they didn't because he was gone.

"Let's split up and search for bad guys," Tonks said determinedly. "I'll take the front end, you take the back?"

"Sounds good to me."