Thank you very much to the people who have decided to follow this story! There are a lot of chapters that have been written, but as many first drafts they tend to need a little work until it is not just a brain fart.

Song of the Day: Abyss by Jin

Book of the Day: Open Water, Nelson

Fun fact: the full moon in the year 1993 was on the 30th of October. But we don't need to follow the lunar chart of the real world, do we?

Sleep did not do her well that night. Eliza drifted in and out of consciousness. When she couldn't sleep, she normally would find the next thing that could keep her brain awake. But reading did not help and Eliza didn't want to seek out the house elves this late at night. She practically begged for a cup of chai with two shots of espresso the next morning. Over breakfast, Eliza found herself rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she perused the front page of the Daily Prophet. Sirius' face looked back at her. It was a relatively old photo, not like the one they had shown on the muggle news. Give or take, it could be from five years ago.

BLACK SPOTTED IN SCOTLAND, WIZARD COMMUNITY ON HIGH ALERT

The person on the front page looked foreign. The dark bags under his eyes, the loss of his aristocratic features that he used to pride himself on. She wondered if he had turned into a living skeleton with his skin stretched across, walking its way up the castle in search of revenge. It was like the old stories her father would tell her from his hometown.

No, best not to go there. Not ever. Shoving the paper out of the way, she ate her breakfast going through the biography of Alfred Nobel in her head to keep it occupied.

"Watcha thinkin' there, Eliza?" Hagrid wondered. "You seem to be up in the clouds a bit."

"The Order of Merlin and the Nobel Prize," she stabbed at her scrambled eggs. "I wonder if there is a certain political bias when it comes to who gets what prize and how performative it may be."

"That's, uh, interesting," Hagrid frowned. "I assume this Nobel fella was the muggles version of Merlin?"

"Perhaps. He invented the dynamite, which makes things go boom." Eliza made a hand gesture when she said boom.

"I see. I dare say those muggles are gettin' good at livin' without magic," Hagrid said happily. "The only muggles I've really been around have been ah well... Potter's aunt and uncle. Don't say they are the greatest sort."

"Petunia can be alright," Eliza said softly. "She didn't always hate Lily."

The last time Eliza had personally spoken to Petunia was when Dudley had entered Kindergarten. The brown-haired Evan sister did not notice her back then, nor did she make any acknowledgement towards Eliza even though she had been around Lily's house many times during the summer holidays. If Petunia Dursley, though in her mind Eliza preferred to refer to her as Petunia Evans, was good at one thing, it was compartmentalising and ignoring.

"I don't know about that, Lizzie," Hagrid shook his head. "What's your schedule for 'day then?"

She looked down at the timetable. "Well, there aren't many students who take muggle studies so I have all of the houses in one class," Eliza squinted at the schedule. "It's a year a day, so I'm good. Starting with the third years."

"You'll do just fine," Hagrid looked confident. "Should be right up your alley. You were always good at that. The jinxes and what not, but I see Lupin beat ya to that title, didn't he?"

The Muggle Studies classroom was filled with trinkets. There was a vinyl player in the corner, a walkman (How old was that supposed to be for the wizards!), a rubber duck and a bobblehead of the Queen of England waving. Eliza was surprised to find that the projector actually worked in that room. Muggle artefacts went haywire around Hogwarts. Eliza hadn't been allowed to use her portable vinyl player when she was a student unless it was from Diagon Alley, which cost a great load more than what a muggle one would cost.

Many students trudged into the room unsure of themselves, quietly taking a place at the table until they saw someone they knew. Eliza noted the girl with bushy hair who had come in with Harry last night, looking a little out of breath. Eliza smiled when she saw at least a few Slytherins had signed up for the class. When the bell rang, Eliza made her presence clear.

She wrote her name on the blackboard with a piece of chalk and turned around to address the class. They were all 12-13, the age where they started to be a little rambunctious. Eliza's normal crowd were 3-year-olds, but she would make do.

"Everyone settle down," Eliza waved her wand and lowered the blinds in the room. The room went dark and in that moment Eliza tapped the small projector. A beam of light came out of the mouth. A few students gasped when they saw the moving pictures that were projected onto the screen and the title that showed up in French. The pictures, though they moved as much as the portraits at Hogwarts, behaved differently for them. They didn't acknowledge the person that was looking at it. Though the wizarding world had actors, those actors played in theatres. Movies did not exist.

She didn't show it for long, only until the face on the moon and the rocket that landed on it showed up.

"Class," she raised the blinds. "What I showed you is something muggles call moving pictures. Now, we have them in our world as well, but in a slightly different form and it is also part," she took a short pause. "of the entertainment industry. Just like us, we have ballets, operas, musicals, sports - we all share many things, but also we don't. Cut upon a wizard and a human, you'll notice that we also very much look the same on the inside."

She heard a small ew coming from one of the students and shrugged. "A Persian leader once said, we are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden. There are English muggles, and there are English wizards. We share histories. There is strength in our similarities and there is also a lot we can learn from our differences.

"A show of hands and only if you're comfortable – how many are you are in here because you want to potentially pursue a job at the Ministry?"

Three people raised their hands.

"How many of you are here because you needed an additional subject and didn't feel like doing the others?"

The rest except one raised their hand. She laughed. Typical.

"We're going to have a great time. Today, we won't start with this bad boy –" she patted the projector. "But rather at how they found electricity. Then, we can talk about movies."

She felt rather comfortable in the front. It felt like a big show-and-tell hour. When the class was over she handed out the essay that would be due by the end of the month - Explain the similarities between magic and the natural Sciences. She felt accomplished that no one left the class looking like they wanted to cry.

"Professor," Harry's friend walked up to her. "That was a good lesson."

"Thank you, Ms...?" she trailed on. She hadn't called on any of the kids this lesson.

"Granger. Hermione Granger."

She smiled. "Did you want to ask me something?"

"Not really. It's more of an observation. I'm a muggleborn taking this class because I was interested in seeing how wizards see us," redness brushed her cheeks as she seemed embarrassed about it. "And... well, it sounds weird for me to say that I wasn't aware at how electricity was discovered. I was always more of a humanities person."

"Electricity wasn't taught in my Science class until Year 4," Eliza remembered honestly. "Can't say I cared much about it. I always looked forward to censoring a frog."

"You grew up in the muggle world?" her eyes brightened. "Oh where are you from? I have never met a teacher that went to school there, let alone someone who was in Slytherin."

Hermione, who upon seeing Eliza's questionable face, looked abashed. "I looked up everything I could find out about Hogwarts when they told me that I was a witch. It helped a lot so far - Harry wouldn't have known his father was a Quidditch player."

Something tugged at her heart. The thought of the boy who didn't know anything about his parents who had to find out through others. She remembered when Hagrid had written her about a few photos and she had sent Hagrid a few for Harry. She wished she could tell him more, but he had no idea who she was.

"How are they treating you here?" Eliza asked instead. "I hope no troubles."

"I..." Hermione held her books closer to her chest. The pile was a lot bigger than her other fellow students. She noted a book on Ancient Runes there. But that couldn't be, Ancient Runes were at the same time as muggle studies.

"It's great and all, but some people are uncomfortable of certain houses, that's all." Hermione finally said.

From the way Hermione was standing and how she spoke of Slytherin, Eliza could only suspect how terrible some of the students were being to her simply because she was a muggle-born. It reminded her of Lily, who had to be the brightest witch of her age or else people wouldn't let her live it down.

"If you ever want to talk about something, something that your fellow students won't understand as wizards, my door is always open," Eliza told Hermione. "Be it workload or anything else. And if I am not there, try the hospital wing or the DADA classroom."

"Thank you, professor!" Hermione smiled. "I'll take you up on that offer."

The next morning was not as cheerful as Eliza had hoped. When she went down to the Great Hall, Hagrid was looking all but sad.

"The Malfoy boy went against Hagrid's instructions and he was attacked by the Hippogriff," Remus explained. "Lucius Malfoy isn't happy about it, of course. Poppy fixed him up quite fine, there won't even be a scar or anythin'."

If she remembered Lucius Malfoy right, a Hippogriff attacking his son was not something he would take lightly.

The week went on after that. Eliza took note of her students. Many of them were the children of people she had gone to Hogwarts with, though she never mentioned it in case it was something they were too prideful or ashamed of. She would rather see the children independent from their parents, which was hard when it came to Slytherin's house at times.

What astounded her even more were the Weasley twins who, after eying her weirdly for a couple of days, finally walked up to her and asked them the question that was on their mind.

"Professor, you don't happen to know Gideon Prewett?" George had asked in a sceptical tone.

"Yes," she looked at the twins suspiciously. "I did."

"And Molly Weasley?"

"Your mum?" she had tilted her head. "Of course I do. And I've known you two since you were in diapers. Now if you don't want Mr. Filch to see that you were placing dungbombs in his office again, I suggest you hurry along. I saw him patrolling the area."

On Thursday, Remus explained what had happened during his first lesson with the third years that didn't put them – the third years and Remus – in Snape's good graces. They had started with boggarts and the riddikulus charm. Neville Longbottom's boggart turned out to be Professor Snape which he then transformed into Snape in Neville's grandmother's clothing. The secret did not stay in the classroom and spread like wildfire. By the time Neville had potions with Professor Snape, Neville had a week's worth of detention for not scrubbing his cauldron clean properly.

Eliza was more worried about the prospects of a child being so afraid of their teacher that it's their boggart. As adept as Snape was at Potions, it did not give him the right to be mean.

Outside of everything else, her classes were going fine enough. It didn't seem like anyone hated it either way. The seventh year was a rather thinned-out pool of students, but that was fine with her as she could give them proper counselling and guidance. Weeks went by and slowly the essays began to pile up. She graded them, made sure that things were running as smoothly as possible, and stayed on top of things. Poppy didn't need any extra help in the hospital wing - the number of injuries a day was well managed by her.

"Wait until the Quidditch season begins," Poppy had said in a grave tone. She hated the sport more than anything. "You know how rough a game can get."

Remus, though he was technically her roommate, did not speak to her much unless they were in the Great Hall apart from their short greeting on their first day. They'd walk with each other to the Great Hall and make small talk, but that was it. Remus, like Eliza, did not speak of the past. She wasn't sure if it was because of her that he didn't speak of it. The big topic between the two of them was very much taboo, despite the Daily Prophet's constant reminder.

Then came Remus' first full moon at Hogwarts.

"Are you sure you don't need me to take over a class?" Eliza asked during lunch. Lunch was a quiet affair. He had asked for the food to be sent to his room. Severus had been seen sauntering past the room at least once a day with a flask of wolfsbane. Remus, who seemed to be getting paler by the hour, waved Eliza's concern off.

"No, no. I'll be able to do it. Don't you worry about me."

"I assure you, Shafiq. Lupin has been surviving even without you," Severus raised an eyebrow. "Unless you have such a saviour complex that you need your hand in everything."

Eliza narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Now was not the time for squabbles.

"But in any case," Severus continued. "I can offer my expertise for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Surely I am a bit more of an expert."

"I'll get back to whomever I see first tomorrow," Lupin wrinkled his nose at the potion. "You know, if you had told me years ago that you two would be fighting me for a substitute class, I would have laughed."

"This would be the last of it today," Snape rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you do not need me to tell you when the next full moon is. Hopefully I have nothing to do with you until then."

Then, with a wave of his cloak, he left the office.

"He's a little dramatic," Remus said apologetically.

Eliza examined his face and touched his pulse, looking at her watch. It was a little bit elevated, but otherwise, he was fine. The limp he seemed to walk with when he first arrived got better, but she assumed it had something to do with the full moon. Remus drank the rest of his wolfsbane in silence.

"You know," Remus started. "The last time you took care of me on a full moon was before Harry's first birthday."

"That I remember quite well," she stopped counting and multiplied the heartbeat count. "You're fine, by the way."

She had known there would come a time when Remus might start, but she was not ready for it. Perhaps it was how vulnerable the full moon made him when he was at his lowest before the transformation.

"I think that was genuinely the last time we were all happy," he said in a sad voice. "The last happy occasion."

"There's more to come," Eliza chided. "Think about what it's like when Black gets caught again. I'll feel better then."

"Would you?" he questioned and raised an eyebrow. "You have a bad habit of deflecting you know."

Eliza pursed her lips. She tapped Remus' hip with her wand and there was a small pop! that indicated that his hip was back in its place.

"How about you tell me the next time you tear your labrum," she deflected.

Remus sighed. "I won't get anywhere with you, I guess." He looked at the time and clapped his hands together. "Well then, I'll see you in the morning then, Eliza. First thing, I presume."

He nearly pushed her out of the room. Eliza lost her footing for a second and stumbled her way to the door. She would have felt a lot more insulted if she didn't know this was a class-A Remus tactic of getting people to talk.

And it was working, because she felt guilty.

"Good night -"

Just as he was about to slam the door shut, Eliza put her boot in between the door.

"Wait," she let out a sigh. Lupin looked back at her, a look of expectation on his face. "You're right. I won't have a better time if he ends up in Azkaban."

He waited.

Eliza could not bring herself to say it. Everyone knew the story of how she had begged Cornelius Fudge to give him a trial and was denied. Not even Dumbledore could do a thing about it when all the signs called him guilty. The reason she had sleepless nights, especially nearing the anniversary, was because she had been there in the aftermath of the destruction. The blown-up area, the dead muggles. All of it made sense to the ministry. All except her.

As a witch, Eliza knew how brutal a spell that blows up people could look like.

And as a muggle who had spent enough time in the ER with cousins who had no business doing stupid things, she knew what a deliberately cut-off finger looked like.

And Peter Pettigrew's finger fell into the muggle category.

But she didn't say it. Instead, she retreated her shoe and returned to her room.