September 1st, The Hogwarts Express

Hermione stared out the window of the Hogwarts Express, watching parents hug their children, a sharp pain in her chest. After spending the entire year at school, she had stayed with her parents for just a few weeks before going to the Burrow, and much of that time had been spent in Milan with Perseus. To say that she missed them would be an understatement, and she wouldn't see them again until Christmas break. It left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.

The trip to Milan though, had been the best trip of her life, right up until the end, and she knew her parents had greatly enjoyed it as well. They stayed in a large, historical palace that had as much magical history to it as Hogwarts, visited a beautiful shopping district where the witches and wizards wore dresses and suits . And, it didn't cost them a thing. It had given her parents greater insight into her world than they'd ever had before, and words couldn't describe how happy that made her, or how grateful she was to have Perseus as a friend.

And she had danced with Perseus. She, Hermione Granger, had danced with a Duke. She felt the heat rising to her cheeks, just thinking back on the moment. The moment she realized that perhaps, she might like Perseus as more than just a friend. And God, what a terrifying thought that was.

Hermione glanced at Harry, his sullen face a welcome distraction from her own inner conflict, staring out the window across from her. It was a look that she was beginning to see more frequently, much to her dismay.

"What's bothering you, Harry?" she asked gently, even though she already had a pretty good idea.

Harry opened his mouth, and Hermione waited to hear his patented Fine. But what she got instead, was a sigh. "It's nothing really," he said, his shoulders slumped. "I'm just worried about Sirius."

"Ease up, mate," Ron said through a mouthful of ham sandwich his mother had packed for him. The train hadn't even left yet. "You heard dad, he's gotta get his head screwed back on straight."

In usual Ron fashion, it was far from tactful, but judging by the small grin that grew on Harry's face, it was what he needed. "I'm sure he's doing just fine, Harry." Quite sure, actually, she thought to herself with wince. Perseus had told her how his father was doing through her notebook, and she couldn't help but feel almost like she was betraying Harry by keeping it from him — but well, how would she explain what she knew?

Hermione pulled out a book, listening to Ron and Harry's idle chatter. Before she knew it, they were half way to Hogwarts.

Hermione looked up as someone knocked on the door to their compartment. She shared a glance with Harry and Ron. They had yet to receive their annual Malfoy visit, but he certainly wouldn't knock. So that left the question, who was knocking?

After we sharing another glance with Ron, Harry slid out of his seat, walked up the door, and slid it open.

Hermione's breath hitched in her chest.

Violet eyes swept over the compartment, caught on her for just the barest hint of a second, and finally settled on Harry.

"Black," Harry said in surprise, looking up at him. Hermione released the puff of air that had been trapped in her chest at the sight of him, and leaned forward in her seat to get a better view.

His appearance was as pristine and immaculate as ever. His hair was combed neatly, his robes were crisp and without a wrinkle, and he stood there in the entryway, tall and straight and impossibly — devastatingly — handsome. But, more than that, there was a lightness about him that had been missing before. Hermione had never suspected his father's situation had weighed on him so heavily, and she cursed herself for it. Just the year before she had seen he was willing to attack a professor to defend the man!

"Potter," Perseus said. He reached into his robes, and Harry's hand moved to his pocket. Hermione nearly huffed. Perseus could have his wand out faster than Harry could blink, besides, Perseus never carried his wand in his robe. And Perseus wasn't Malfoy, he certainly wasn't going to curse them out of the blue.

Perseus' hand came back with an envelope, which he held out to Harry. "From my father."

Perseus' eyes darkened as Harry snatched the letter from his hand, and Hermione couldn't help her own frown. She understood Harry was excited, but that was no excuse to be rude, and while she might understand, she couldn't say Perseus was the understanding type, and he held manners in high regard.

Harry ripped the envelope open, and his eyes devoured the letter. The more he read, the bigger the smile on his face grew. Hermione itched to have the letter in her own hands.

Harry looked up at Perseus, his eyes shiny and bright. "How's he doing? How did he look? He told me if I had any questions, I should ask you."

Perseus shrugged. "He asked if you could come to me with any questions, and I said yes." His lips twitched, just the slightest, and Hermione nearly palmed her own face. "But I never told him I'd answer, did I? See you all in class." He turned on his heel and left as suddenly as he had arrived, the door sliding shut behind him, the click far too loud in the silence that had taken over their compartment.

Hermione shook her head. For as aloof as Perseus was, he sure knew how to be dramatic. Snatching the envelope in his excitement had cost Harry whatever information Perseus might have considered sharing with him.

"An annoying twat, that one is," Ron huffed, leaning back in his seat.

"What does it say?" Hermione demanded, ignoring Ron and his crass mouth. She had long since given up hope on training him to be any semblance of a gentleman.

Harry sat down, his face a look of consternation. "Nothing, really," he said, frowning at the letter. "Just that he'll be in the hospital for a little while, but I can write to him as often as I'd like." Harry's eyes brightened and a smile split his face. "But as soon as he's home, he says he'll petition for guardianship!"

"Oh Harry, that's wonderful!" Hermione said, reaching across the table and squeezing his hand. If she weren't already seated she would've wrapped him in the tightest hug he'd ever had. She couldn't think of anything better for Harry than getting away from his relatives.

"Yeah." Ron nodded along, swallowing his cheek-stuffing mouthful. "Even sharing a house with Black has to be better than your relatives."

Hermione watched Harry's face fall. Whether it was at the mention of his relatives, or the reminder that he wouldn't be living with just Sirius, she couldn't tell.

"Yeah," Harry said quietly, once more staring out the window. "I guess so."

Hermione shared a glance with Ron, who merely shrugged before stuffing the remainder of his sandwich — an entire half — into his mouth.

Wrinkling her nose, she pulled out her favorite Transfiguration book, the one written by Dumbledore himself, and tried to get the mental image of Ron and his sandwich out of her head.

Maybe there was a spell that could force him to eat like he had any sense of decorum? Flipping a page, she decided she would have to look into it.


The Great Hall

Perseus' classmates chatted excitedly about the tournament. He tried his best to tune them out. This was always the hardest part of coming back to Hogwarts — the noise, and the people. Home was nearly complete silence, and he'd grown up alone. The cacophony and bustle of Hogwarts was an instant headache.

"Did you know about this?" Blaise said across from him, looking at him and Daphne.

"Yes," they said simultaneously.

Blaise raised his brows. "And why am I just now finding out about it?"

"Didn't seem important," Perseus said absently, not even hearing Daphne's reply. His focus was on the infamous Auror, Mad-Eye Moody. Everything about the man was strange. His body was torn apart with cursed scars, his Occlumency was strong, but not enough to make him a ghost in Perseus' presence, but the feel of his magic was volatile, constantly flickering. He couldn't wrap his head around it.

Was it a result of all the curse damage? The wildly revolving eye that swirled untamed in its socket?

"Did you know Mad-Eye would be our professor this year?" Perseus asked Daphne.

She shook her head. "I'm not sure that anyone knew, I don't think many parents would've been happy about it."

Perseus thought of Quirrel, Lockhart, and Lupin. The opinion of parents was certainly not something Dumbledore concerned himself with when hiring staff.

Perseus found himself almost relaxing as he ate and chatted with Blaise and Daphne about their summers. They were particularly interested to hear about how he'd healed the Golden Trio at the World Cup.

"The Weasley girl hung herself all over you?" Daphne asked incredulously.

Perseus nodded reluctantly, his cheeks warming at the memory. In the moment, he'd been furious at the girl's presumptuousness. He still was, really. But that night, when he was sorting through all the memories of his day, he was able to feel how warm she'd been, and how soft she was pressed up against him, and just how inebriated she'd been from the Numbing Draught. He was sure the girl would be more embarrassed than he was angry whenever her twin brothers got ahold of that information. It hadn't been all bad, and it wasn't like Ginny Weasley was a bad looking girl — quite the opposite, in fact. Not even all his Occlumency training could save him from his own pubescent hormones.

Blaise stifled a laugh. "Good on you mate, not bad looking that Weasley."

Daphne scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "Perseus could have any girl in this school, why would he pick the Weaslette ?"

Blaise raised a brow, a smirk on his lips. "Even you, Greengrass?"

Daphne's face was glowing in seconds, her eyes darting to Perseus. He raised a brow, just as interested as Blaise. Her face burned an even brighter shade of red, and if he were a better person he might've taken less enjoyment out of her flaming red cheeks. It wasn't often you could fluster the girl, but the handful of times Perseus had seen it happen, Blaise had been the cause.

Besides, just because Daphne was his friend didn't mean he was unaware of just how startlingly pretty she was, and he certainly liked her well enough. The thought of spending his life with Daphne by his side was not by any means a horrible one, and it certainly wouldn't ruffle any feathers. Not that he cared either way. He was too young to be thinking about marriage, anyway. That was something he would have to get just right.

"Well," she said after gathering herself. " If Perseus were to make an offer to my father, I can't see how he, or anyone else, would refuse."

"Well, what do you say Black?" Blaise asked, his smirk a full blown grin at this point. Daphne tried to glare a hole through his head.

Perseus shook his head. "If I ever make an offer to anyone's father, it will be because I want to spend the rest of my life with their daughter, and not for any other reason."

Blaise's brows rose so high his forehead wrinkled, and Daphne was smiling in a way he'd never seen her smile before.

"That was very sweet, Perseus," Daphne said.

"Poetic, even," Blaise said, his smirk ever present. Daphne's glare could compete with a basilisk.

Perseus shook his head at their antics. He hadn't meant to come off so sappy, but that was as plainly as he could put it. His Great-Grandfather Arcturus had put it quite plainly that to marry for any reason other than love would be a nearly irredeemable mistake. That an unhappy marriage was the easiest way for a Lord to lose his way. It was the reason why Arcturus had been the last political match in the Black family, and if Perseus could help it, there would never be another.

A hush fell over the Great Hall as Dumbledore stood to his feet, tapping his goblet with his spoon. "There is one last announcement I'd like to make before you head off to your dorms," he said. "Or perhaps it would be more accurately described as a show of recognition."

Dumbledore's gaze trailed the Slytherin table, finding him instantly. And as he held Dumbledore's twinkling gaze, his hairs stood on end.

"As I'm sure many of you are aware, there was a most heinous attack at the Grand Cup Finals just over the summer." There was an outburst of murmurs, heads coming together all around the Great Hall. "Many people were injured, but thanks to the intervention of one of Hogwarts' very own, there were no fatalities."

Perseus swore the twinkle in the old man's eyes intensified. He ignored the glances of Daphne and Blaise, he ignored the beaming smile that he could see lighting Hermione's face from across the hall.

"100 points to Slytherin." It was like someone had sucked the air out of the room. "His Grace, Mediwizard Perseus Black, was single handedly responsible not only for putting a stop to the attack that night, but also for saving lives of those directly impacted by the attackers. I will not go into detail of just how impressive Mr. Black's feats of magic were, but we should all consider ourselves very lucky if we were to have the misfortune of falling injured in his presence."

Perseus' skin crawled at the weight of every gaze in the hall, each pair of eyes searing into his skin, and he felt heat suffuse him at Dumbledore's compliment.

He didn't know who started clapping first. Hermione or Daphne, or perhaps it was Dumbledore himself. Before he knew it, the entire hall was applauding him — his fellow Slytherins had even taken to their feet. It was ludicrous.

But as he sat there, taking in the applause…Daphne's uncharacteristic cheering, Dumbledore's starry eyed gaze, and best of all Hermione's glowing face.

As he saw the pride in their eyes, how truly happy they were to celebrate his accomplishment, he couldn't help but feel it himself. It washed over him like a cresting wave. He had done something to be proud of, something his family could be proud of. He felt how he did every time he put on a new suit and looked in the mirror. Like he had mastered casting a new spell silently. Like he was ready to take on the world.

He had stopped those Death Eaters from continuing their attack. He had saved the lives of that muggle family, and it hadn't been particularly easy, either. The youngest, an 8 year old girl, had been hit with a particularly nasty and obscure flesh rotting curse, one that even he didn't know.

It was through sheer ingenuity he was able to figure out exactly how the curse was rotting the girl's flesh, and sheer luck that she survived. Only the fact that she was a muggle saved her life. Perseus had deduced that without magic to feed on, the curse couldn't progress nearly as quickly as it would've otherwise. If the little girl had been a witch, she surely would've died. That thought had stuck in his mind for several days, and it put an immediate damper on his mood as his mind flashed back to the little girl, her skin blackening, and crumbling like clay. Her lack of magic had made him hesitant to place her under a stasis charm while he tried to save her. Not even Occlumency could block out her wails of agony the next several nights he tried to sleep.

Shuddering, he pushed the thought from his mind.

The remainder of the feast passed quickly for him, his mind elsewhere. He was acutely aware of the gaping maws everywhere he looked. He was used to people looking away from him, not staring like he was Potter.

The entire great hall stood as one as Dumbledore dismissed them. There was still a murmur through the crowd, his name like flies buzzing around his ears.

He released a breath as they diverted to the dungeons, the noise now reduced only to the nervous first years, muttering and rustling about, huddled together. It didn't take a genius to see they were terrified.

The way to the dungeons was dark, and cold, even in early Autumn. The wide halls, vaulted ceilings, and sparse torches that cast wide shadows could certainly play tricks on the mind. The random animated portraits running from frame to frame, the flashes of bright paint against dark stone that easily looked like spells under the flickering flames — it was a recipe for unease. Tracey Davis still couldn't walk the halls of the dungeons alone past sunset.

Glancing at them, he raised his wand, and around the tip grew a glowing ring of light. He let the ring expand into a small halo. With a flick, the ring flew towards the first years, who all ducked with varying cries of panic. The halo suspended itself above them, cascading them in a sheet of light.

Turning around, he ignored the renewed stares, and kept walking.

"So Perseus," Blaise said, his coy voice breaking the silence. "Tell me more about this super smart, super hot Frenchie you met at the World Cup?"

With the combination of Blaise's smirk, Daphne's eye roll, and the now excited chattering of the first years, he couldn't help but smile.