I know this chapter is short and I apologize for it, but after this there are essentially no short chapters whatsoever, so don't fret! The following chapter is a big plot chapter, but it's not the start of a massive climb in conflict. The first fifteen-ish chapters are mostly character and romance development, whilst the major commotion begins around chapter twenty. Anyway, I hope you enjoy... And please comment, favorite, and follow! As always, Q&A is at the bottom!

Early December 1977

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Sirius and Blanche sat at opposite corners of the table at breakfast. Between them sat Peter, Lily, James, Remus, and a few of Lily's friends that Blanche had never grown to like. Nowadays, their few exchanged words were short and those which would be shared between acquaintances. No one asked; if they did, both typically responded with a private and foul-worded retort. Sirius had spent his last week's attention on Holly Butters, who was a friend of Lily's. He needed something to distract his mind from the rolling thoughts of the enigma Talbot; he assumed the worst—the boyfriend at home on whom she had cheated with Sirius; the boyfriend she'd never mentioned. It really wouldn't be all that shocking—Blanche was very private and she never gossiped.

Blanche felt a rancorous dislike toward Holly Butters, who had once made efforts to befriend Blanche—all to no avail, of course. Blanche initially found her vapid and forgettable, but Lily always remarked that Holly was 'optimistic and silly.' It didn't help that Sirius had chosen someone as dull as her, and it really didn't help that she repeatedly made an effort to sliver in between James and Sirius, which set off James more often than not. He never objected in her presence, but when she left the room James tended to speak rather badly of her. Blanche usually pitched in on this, and Sirius rarely made an effort to defend her.

Blanche startled when Remus Lupin slid a piece of bacon over the table and onto her plate. She looked at him oddly for his unnecessary gesture. "Have it. You look like you need it," he grinned.

Blanche glared at him. She hadn't been sleeping much lately, but that didn't give others the right to comment on her looks. "Thanks," she responded sarcastically.

"I don't mean it like that. You're just looking a little pale, is all," he shrugged. She bit the inside of her lips and accepted the bacon into her hand. He tilted his brown-haired head toward Holly and Sirius, then raised his brow. "I reckon that's what has you in a foul mood?"

"No," she immediately rejected. "I'm used to Sirius' philandering by now, don't worry."

"Is it philandering…or recovering?" Remus asked ominously whilst objectively observing Sirius pay meager attention to Holly.

"Sorry?" Blanche asked.

"You think he's with her because he wants to be, or because he feels like he needs to be?"

"Remus, could you form a lucid thought please?" Blanche asked irritably. "He doesn't have to be with anyone."

"Maybe he does, Blanche. I don't think he wants to be with Holly—I just think he has to recover from what you did to him… And you and I both know Padfoot—the only thing he knows is girls, so I reckon that's also the only way he knows how to recover."

Blanche screwed her face into a scowl. Who was he to treat her like she'd wounded Sirius and say—what—that owed him an apology? "And what would you know about it? Why—"

"You don't think he kept me up all night with it?" Remus laughed. "Don't get me wrong—I'm not trying to say you're to blame for anything. I'm just trying to make some sense of it."

Blanche unwound her lips and sighed. She always found it was hard to be angry with Remus, as he often spoke with a profound and undeniable candor.

"All I'm saying," Remus continued, "is that I believe he's with Holly because he needs a way to forget about what happened that night. Because that kid loves you with all his heart and he almost had you… You've got to admit—that's rough."

Blanche looked at him for a few moments in admiration, and wondered why she had chosen to make best friends with Sirius rather than him. Then a glance at Sirius' massively grinning face and a sound of his barking laugh shook her with reality—there didn't seem to be a better answer than the fact that it was Sirius. No one would ever match him.

"Why don't you sit with me in Potions class?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. Remus cleared his throat and tried to casually look down the table. If Sirius saw Blanche and Remus sitting together in class there was a good chance he'd blow a fuse. He could go without receiving a beating from Sirius; however, Sirius wasn't really speaking to her anymore so he supposed it was alright.

"I'm already shite enough at Potions. If I sat next to you, I'd look even worse," he laughed. He saw the flicker of a smile on the corner of her lips.

"I can help you. A lot of times the textbook is a bit… well, wrong. I can see it because I know the ingredients. If you sit with me, I can help you—if you'd like," she offered.

"Sure. That sounds good," he smiled.

"Remus, how does wolfsbane potion taste?" Blanche asked the boy sitting next to her in the Gryffindor Common Room. Her textbook, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, was open to the 'A' chapter. The cushion on which Remus sat wrinkled as he visibly stiffened. She had asked quietly and the room wasn't very crowded, but he was forever vigilant about the matter.

With Remus' approval, Sirius had told Blanche about Remus' lycanthropy in Fifth Year, when she grew angry with him for sneaking off without word once a month. Eventually she stopped speaking to him, and after a month of silence Sirius had effectively been reduced to a depressed curmudgeon. After James spent three hours one night defending Sirius' request to tell Blanche, Remus relented and told Sirius he could tell her. After she found out, she was nothing but…normal. When Remus had approached her about it, she stopped him and said only: 'I know monsters—you're not one of them.'

"Atrocious," he answered.

"I imagine so. Aconitum is allegedly quite bitter," she sighed.

"And you can't put sugar in it. Tampers with the potion."

"I imagine so. Pity it is such a tricky one. Even if I made it, I'd be afraid for its taker."

Wolfsbane Potion was fresh on the market; it was recently invented by an old Hogwarts graduate by the name of Damocles Belby. Slughorn raved about him quite often. Blanche assumed very few took the potion, as it was so state-of-the-art it carried weighty risks. Remus' father, however, had managed to get his hands on some from his high-ranking position in the wizarding world.

"You have no idea," he shook his head. She closed the textbook and looked at the scar that dragged across his profile.

"Can I ask you a question about your… lycanthropy?" She asked carefully and scientifically.

"I suppose," he answered hesitantly.

"You can remember what you did after your transformation, right?" She asked him. He nodded solemnly. "What's it like when you do remember?"

Remus paused, thinking for the right words to describe it. "It's like looking through a two-way glass from the darkened side. I remember what I've done and what it looks like, and I can see it through my side of the glass. But on the other side is me after I've transformed, and all that monster can see is itself. Everything from the other side of the mirror is washed away. It's like I'm not even there.

This is all without the wolfsbane. With it, it isn't a looking glass—it's just glass. I can see it and it can see me. But there's still no familiarity between me and it. Every full moon, wolfsbane or no, I disappear and it appears."

Blanche paused in thought, wondering what it was like to see oneself disappear once a month—just at the kiss of a moonbeam. Every word he spoke was riddled in hatred. He hated himself for it as much as he hated the monster he turned into.

"Is that why you've never had a girlfriend?" She asked him. It was of no interest to someone else, just curiosity that asked the question. Did he hate himself so much he would not permit love? Sounds familiar, a horrid voice in her mind added.

Blanche had always felt an unspoken kinship with Remus. There was some monstrosity sitting deep down in both of them, and neither had any way of rooting it out. In the coalition of the Marauders, Remus was the quietest—the most thoughtful. And Blanche had always had an admiration for Remus in that was how he lived with his monster—by being kind and unselfish. That was where Blanche and he parted ways; Blanche lived with her monster by being glacial, stiff, and unwelcoming.

"I can't ever marry, so there's no point to having a girlfriend. The whole point of dating is to find someone right to marry, isn't there? So what's the point?" He shrugged. She tried to think that the way he lived was a horrible way to live, but she realized the way she lived was not all that different. Of course she wasn't a werewolf, but she did think similarly.

"What if the point of dating is just to love someone and have somebody love you?" She questioned. It wasn't necessarily a question directed at him, but he answered nonetheless with a bitter chuckle.

"How can someone love a creature that could tear them apart without a second thought once a month?"

"But you're not that creature. You said you disappear."

"I do, but instead of me it lives. And any woman who's fool enough to see that as a risk worth taking would be dead before she knew it."

The door opened and a letter landed on Blanche's lap as she let Remus' words tumble around in her stomach. Absentmindedly, she looked up to see the thrower. Shockingly enough, it was Sirius. He had his own letter in his hands.

"I was at the Owlery and Sulwen flew in. Thought I'd take it to you," he commented before walking away to the other side of the room. Blanche read the name of the sender and almost grimaced: Rabastan Radulf Lestrange. He never sent her letters—only mother. She was his mouthpiece.

"Who's it from, Padfoot?" Remus asked his friend from across the room. Before opening her letter, Blanche looked at him from across the room. His brows with knit together as he used a letter opener to examine the contents of the envelope.

"Ministry of Magic… International Magic Office of Law," he muttered in response.

"Oh no… What'd you do now, my old friend?" Remus laughed as Sirius unfolded the letter. Remus looked to Blanche as she turned the letter over in her hands. "What about you, Blanche?"

"The bane of my existence," she answered quietly.

"Who's that?" Remus inquired.

"Her father," Sirius answered.

"Oh," Remus frowned. "What's wrong with that?"

"He's quite similar to my own father," Sirius answered. Or worse. Much worse, Blanche added internally.

"I see," Remus raised his brow in understanding. "Well spill, Padfoot. What's it say?"

Sirius' eyes quickly read across the document, which had nothing to do with misbehavior but natural events.

Mr. Sirius Black,

We are sorry to inform you that your uncle, Alphard Pollux Black, died on 29 November 1977. The following document is his will, which entitles you to a sum of his wealth. The aggregate of his leavings has been relocated from the Black family vault to your own.

Our condolences,

The International Magic Office of Law

Ministry of Magic

Sirius excitedly flipped to the will enclosed within. He felt a bit sorry for his poor uncle, but he'd never been very close to him. He knew he was a kind man, but he was also a quiet man. He never spoke to Sirius' defense, nor did he ever speak to the defense of any other Blacks. He had never married, never fathered any children, and never had he made much of an impact on anything, save Sirius' vault at Gringotts. Sirius supposed his true nature was revealed in death.

"Merlin's shite!" Sirius cried his favorite curse.

"What is it?!" Remus ran over to him.

"My uncle's passed. He's left me half of his wealth!" Sirius jumped on his toes. "Over three hundred thousand galleons!" He exclaimed.

"Padfoot, be honest now—"

"Moony!" Sirius shook him by the shoulders. "Read it for yourself!" He stuck the letter and will in Remus' hands.

"I'm having Prongs take a look. He gets this legal shite," Remus trotted up the boy's chamber staircase and Sirius followed, whooping loudly with every step.

As their sounds cleared from the air, Blanche used Sirius' letter opener to retrieve the paper inside. She unfolded it, and grew a bit sick at her father's gnarled but formal script.

Blanche,

In order to allow you to maintain your academic standard, I have kept news from you that I am now imparting at your mother's behest. As you know she comes from the House of Greengrass, and consequently has long carried the burden of her blood. An ancestor of the Greengrasses was placed under a blood malediction many decades ago, and the curse still carries. Your mother was ill through the months of October and November, and on 3 December she died. She wanted you to know that she loved you and wished me to inform you of the malediction upon her death. The funeral will be held 21 December; you will be out of school by then. I cannot retrieve you from the train station, but your Aunt Bellatrix has very kindly offered to do so in my stead. Please act kindly toward her, as I could easily have you retrieved by a housekeeper. She offers her condolences. Do not let this impact your marks; if it does, I will be grievously angry with you.

Best regards,

Rabastan Radulf Lestrange

Blanche let the letter fall to her lap in a swish of falling parchment. She looked to the fire cooking the room into a balmy, amber chamber. No more mother. No more frowns and partial smiles, no more bruised wrists and waists, no more 'Father said…' and 'Father told you to…'. No more mother.

There was an empty and icy stiffness in her for quite some time; it just sat there with her and inhibited her from moving. Blanche would have liked to move—perhaps to cry, or throw the letter into the fire, or run for Lily—but she couldn't. The last death she'd experienced had been Talbot's, but this was nothing like that. This was so removed from her she wasn't sure whether her mother or a stranger had died. Blanche was well aware her father was rather incapable of affection, attachment, or warmth, but he'd been the husband of Lavinia for twenty years. And still, he didn't seem to mind much at all that she had died.

She hadn't realized her eyes trained on the coals of the fire before her vision was obstructed by a tall form cast in black by the lack of light in the room. Only her eyes were permitted movement, and they flickered to the face of the blockage—Sirius. The delight of inheritance and wealth was left on his face like a ink fading from pages.

"Blanche, what is it?" He asked her. He knelt in front of her and reached for the letter, unfolding it. She looked straight ahead at nothing as his grey eyes skimmed over the words. When he got to the line of notice, he dropped the paper and instantly encased her in his arms. She instinctively reciprocated the gesture, placing her frozen face within the turn from his shoulder to his neck. He didn't say anything, nor did he apologize; Sirius only held her there for a very long time, trying to take her coldness away and sharing his warmth with her. She didn't cry at all; she only clenched her eyes shut against the collar of his dress shirt and repeatedly opened and closed fistfuls of his untucked and wrinkling shirt.

"Do you want me to go to the funeral with you?" He spoke finally, pulling away just a few inches to see her face. Her skin was even paler than usual, resembling the translucency of the ghosts who lingered the halls and staircases at Hogwarts.

"Your mother will be there," she shook her head. Ever since he ran away over a year ago, he'd avoided his mother at all costs. Neither could imagine what would happen if he ran into Walburga again, but he was willing to do it for her.

"I don't care."

"You should. She'll probably curse you," she answered in a weak voice.

"My mother isn't as great a witch as everyone thinks. I'm not scared of her."

"You don't have to do that Sirius. It will be all the people you hate—Sacred Twenty-Eight and all," she replied.

"Not true. You'll be there," he said. "And maybe Andromeda will be there too. You remember her?" He smiled comfortingly. She nodded at the thought of the grey-haired witch.

"I could use you there, but I don't want you to feel obligated to go."

"But I want to because I am obligated to go. You and I are family, and there's no way I'll miss your mother's funeral," he explained. "Plus, I'm not leaving you alone with all of those bloody maniacs."

"Thanks, Sirius," she smiled minutely. Her face still permitted little muscular response, but she was able to muster a sad, partial grin for him. He smiled back widely, reaching to place a kiss on her forehead. The night of Sirius' birthday had not been forgotten between them; however, it stood now like a wound healing over with fresh tissue, though still leaving a scar that was more pink than it was before.

QUESTIONS:

... To Lil Miss Sunshine 14: Thank you for your comments so far! I love answering them ( : You actually don't know who Talbot is yet, and this character remains a mystery until chapter six or seven, I believe. I think the boy she met over the summer that you're referring to is the Highlander she talks about with Sirius and James in Chapter 1, and that was just a joke! Blanche has never had any romantic relationships. Typical her-she was just being sarcastic and making fun of them! I love Remus very much too, and he will come up here and then in later chapters. I don't believe Bellatrix will make a major appearance until much later, but I also very much look forward to her debut. Keep it up with the awesome questions!