Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I write for entertainment purposes only.

Author's Note: I meant to get this up two days ago and lost track of time, but this is the chapter that had me stumped for months due to my being a big dummy and re-writing a scene I'd already written before. I figured now that I got it sorted out I'd share it and continue working on the rest of the story. I've got a few chapters already written ahead, but I'm going to continue writing and trying to play keep-ahead! Hope you enjoy this one!

The Second Sixth Year of Sirius Black

By: Rae

-A "Harry Potter" Fic-

Two weeks into the new term saw the first Hogsmeade visit, and Hermione walking alongside a large group of her fellow Gryffindors to the wizarding town. Sirius was in his chair while Harry pushed him with Ron on one side and Hermione on the other. She was listening to Parvati, who had some questions for her about her new role as Prefect.

"No, you don't necessarily need to take points from students if they're out after curfew," Hermione was saying. "I really only do it if the student is being rude or refuses to go back to their common room. Or if they're caught breaking some other rule."

"And what about…" Parvati paused and then whispered, "Padma?" She looked conflicted. She and Hermione were the only ones on this side of the wheelchair, and the rest of their group, Lavender, Dean, and Seamus included, were all on the other side out of hearing distance.

"What about Padma?" Hermione asked. Parvati shushed her, and she lowered her tone. "What's going on with Padma?"

"Well, I had to patrol with her the other morning," Parvati said in a low voice. "We walked by the Slytherin common room, and I could tell she really wanted to see him."

"You mean...Malfoy?" Hermione asked, surprised. It had been a while since she'd really thought about Padma and the Slytherin, and she now realized Padma had never tried to talk to her about the situation like she'd expected.

"Yes," Parvati said with a hiss, her brow furrowing. "I know she's up to something with him, but she won't talk to me about it, and I'm worried. I know she said something to you before. So can you tell me what's up?"

Hermione blinked, and Parvati held up a hand. "Don't ask," she said. "I just know that she trusts you a little more than me...at least about this. Am I wrong?"

"Well," Hermione began, "I don't know that she trusts me more than you. I think she just maybe doesn't know how to explain it to anyone?" She was trying to figure out how to explain something she wasn't very sure about. "I don't know, though. She hasn't said much to me at all. We were supposed to talk more this term, but then my cousin showed up and all this happened-" she gestured to the wheelchair, "and I kind of forgot."

"She might tell you more than me," Parvati said stubbornly. "Would you please see if you can talk to her about it? You can leave Donald in your room and take a walk sometime to talk to her, right?"

"Um, right," Hermione said nervously, hoping Parvati couldn't hear the lie in her voice.

"I'd appreciate it if you would try to talk to her about it," the Patil twin told her, looking her in the eye. "I'm worried about her. She wasn't very chatty over Christmas, and she refused to even discuss it with me when I brought it up. We spent three days not talking to each other, Hermione!"

Hermione nodded and put a comforting hand on her former roommate's arm "I understand, Parvati," she told her. "I'll try hard to talk to her about it."

"Thanks."

They were coming up on the town of Hogsmeade now, and the group started to break off. Parvati walked over to Lavender with a determined look on her face as she took her best friend's arm. "You promised we'd go shopping, Lav," she said in a no-nonsense tone.

Lavender looked longingly at Ron, who was already heading off towards the sweets shop without a backwards glance and then let herself be led away by her friend. Before they got too far, she called out, "Won-Won, don't forget to meet me at Madam Puddifoot's later! Three o'clock, okay?"

Red crept up Ron's neck and suffused his skin as he nodded without looking back. Hermione snickered, and Sirius was outright laughing.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius were planning to spend their morning together wandering the shops. The boys had reluctantly agreed to go with Hermione to the bookshop as long as she kept it short, and she'd agreed to the same terms regarding Zonko's. First, though, they all had to replenish their sweets stash at the sweets shop.

While they were there, Sirius grabbed a handful of different things to buy and then stopped. He looked at Hermione with a pensive expression on his face. He looked back down at the pile in his lap and then started to put back the stash he'd created. Hermione quirked a brow before realizing something.

Bending down, she leaned close and whispered in his ear, "Remus told me Dumbledore created an account at Gringott's for you. He sent me a sack of money for you for any purchases you need till we have a chance to go get more. I've got it here."

Sirius pulled back the items he was about to drop in the bin and sat them in his lap. Hermione fished around in her handbag and pulled out the bag triumphantly. Handing it to him, she grinned.

"When did he do that?" Sirius asked, puzzled.

"He gave it to me after Defense the other day when you were busy flirting with the Hufflepuffs," Hermione said primly, studying a shelf of Sugar Quills.

Sirius looked up at her with a grin. She avoided his gaze and snatched a couple packs of Sugar Quills to add to her small basket. Stuffing them inside, she immediately pushed him forward, looking over his head and not acknowledging the grin on his face.

"I wasn't flirting," he said. "They just wanted to ask me a few questions about my background."

Hermione ignored him. Pushing him forward, she almost didn't stop when his arm shot out to grab something off a shelf. He gave her a miffed look, but by that time, Ron and Harry were back with their large pile of sweets, and the four left to check out.

They spent the day browsing different stores and capped it off with a few mugs of cocoa in The Three Broomsticks. Sirius charmed Madam Rosmerta with his grin, and she gave him an extra shot of Firewhisky in his cocoa that Sirius thanked her graciously for. They warmed up from the biting cold and sat close to the fire, trying to dry out their wet cloaks from the snow that had fallen as they walked.

Hermione noticed Padma Patil seated in a distant corner. The Patil twin was all alone and looking around furtively. She caught Hermione's eye and smiled but looked away when Hermione started to wave. Hermione took the hint. As they talked, she looked in Padma's direction every so often. Each time, the girl was still alone, looking around the pub almost anxiously.

Eventually Ron left to go on his date with Lavender, leaving Harry, Hermione, and Sirius nursing their second mugs of hot cocoa while laughing about Ron's Christmas gift from his girlfriend. He'd managed to keep it hidden from Hermione for the first week until that Friday when Lavender yelled at him in the Great Hall for not wearing it. Hermione and Sirius had been part of the eager audience that watched as a chastened Ron pulled a chain from his pocket.

Lavender almost melted when she saw it come out. "She actually cooed," Hermione croaked, laughing as Harry and Sirius burst into laughter at her description. "I didn't know anyone other than pigeons and babies could coo!" Sirius was banging his fist on the table, drawing the eyes of other patrons as he laughed.

Lavender had cooed and immediately snatched it from his hand to string it around his neck. When he turned to his waiting friends, Ron's eyes had slowly closed in misery even as his face flushed such a deep red it matched the sweater he was wearing from his mum.

The chain was, in fact, a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. On the outside of the silver pendant the words "Won-Won" were engraved in a looping script. Hermione had nearly gagged at the sentiment but instead laughed along with everyone else when Sirius barked out a laugh that echoed up and down the hall.

Ron only left The Three Broomsticks when Hermione reminded him it was almost 3:00. He didn't look too happy but got up anyway and walked out of the pub while Sirius taunted him with calls of "See you later, Won-Won!"

After they finished the last of their cocoa, the three decided to head back. Pushing Sirius out of the pub, they made their slow progress through the heaps of snow that had fallen. As they made their way back, Ron caught up to them, looking disgruntled and not accompanying his girlfriend. Hermione saw the forbidding look on his face and decided not to ask. It was a beautiful, crisp snow, and Hermione breathed deeply of the cold air, enjoying the way it filled her lungs. She shivered and clutched her robes closer to her as Harry pushed the wheelchair. They were joking around as they walked, trying to loosen Ron up, and she happened to glance back, only to see a dejected looking Padma making her way along some distance behind them.

Hermione was about to suggest they wait for Padma when they heard it. A ruckus ahead of them had erupted in the form of a group of girls cackling, their voices traveling over the cold air. She looked forward and realized they were coming up on a group of Slytherins, including Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bullstrode, Daphne Greengrass, and Daphne's younger sister Astoria. They all seemed to be laughing at something Pansy had said.

The guys went quiet as the voices carried towards them.

"Face it, Pansy, he'll never want you," Bullstrode said with a hoarse cackle. "Remember how he shoved you out of the way last week? He couldn't get away from you fast enough!"

"Besides," came a cultured voice Hermione recognized as Daphne's, "you know his father would never be caught dead betrothing him to a Parkinson."

A shrill, childish laugh erupted from the group, and Hermione winced.

"Do be quiet, Astoria," Daphne called in a commanding tone. The laugh subsided.

"You're just jealous that you can't get Blaise to pay any attention to you," Parkinson cried out.

"Absolutely she is," Bullstrode chimed in. "She knows he's coming to meet me later anyway."

"To study for Charms, not to shag!"

A peal of laughter carried across the space between them, and Hermione turned to see Sirius smirking at the girls as they continued to walk ahead of them. She reached down and smacked him lightly on the arm. He turned to her and grinned unrepentantly.

Hermione rolled her eyes as they continued at a sedate pace, staying well back from the Slytherin group. She saw it when the girls changed course but didn't quite hear what they were saying as they did so. They took a slight right into the wooded space near an abandoned stone house Hermione knew was on the path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts.

"Ooooh, Drakey, here we are!" Pansy's cry echoed in the air as she rushed ahead of the girls to the decrepit house.

Harry's eyes narrowed and he angled the wheelchair to the right, nearly running over Hermione's foot in the process.

"Harry!" She reprimanded shortly. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to find out what Draco's up to," he replied, steering determinedly towards the line of trees and the house.

"No, c'mon mate, let's just get back to the castle," Ron whined. "It's freezing out here!"

"Why is Malfoy meeting a bunch of Slytherins outside the castle?" Harry shot back angrily. "He's having a meeting of junior Death Eaters, and we're going to see what they're up to!" He forged ahead as Hermione and Ron kept pace on either side of the wheelchair.

"Harry, what's gotten into you?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"Malfoy's gotten into him," Ron grumbled. "He's all up the ferret's arse this year."

"Because he's a Death Eater!" Harry practically shouted, holding back just enough to avoid his voice carrying to the witches ahead.

Harry angled through the woods on a parallel path from the witches so as not to be seen, but it didn't matter as before Sirius could speak, they heard a voice call out from the nearby house.

"Give it up, Malfoy," a boy said in a loud voice. "There's no way there's anything important you could be doing. You're just a dumb kid like the rest of us."

"I'm not like the rest of you, Nott," Malfoy retorted, coming out of the house to stand in the doorway, looking over his shoulder. "I actually have an important job to do, and you'll come crying and begging for me to put in a good word when it's done!"

"Draco!" Pansy cried out in a sickeningly sweet voice, causing him to turn to the girls approaching him. She raced up to him and put a possessive hand on his arm. "I've been wondering where you were! What are you all doing in here?"

Draco shoved past her, brushing her arm off his shoulder. He stopped short at the sight of Millicent, Daphne, and Astoria standing in the small clearing together.

"Hide," Harry whispered urgently, pushing the wheelchair behind a large bush and crouching down. He reached over and yanked Hermione's arm, dragging her down with them.

She grunted as she crouched down, reaching out to steady herself on the arm of the wheelchair and meeting Sirius's speculative glance. She shook her head, knowing now was definitely not the time to engage his questions.

"Malfoy here is about to prove to us that he really does have some big secret mission from the Dark Lord," Blaise Zabini stated in a flat tone. "C'mon then, Draco. You bragged about it when we came out on the train, and then you got real quiet about it once we got here. So which is it? Are you loud and proud for your new master or are you just messing with us?"

Hermione peered through the shrub branches and saw the dark-skinned boy standing stock still. She'd always wondered about Blaise. He never bullied her the way other Slytherins did, and now he was standing arms crossed and feet spread, solidly facing Draco in a challenging manner. She realized, too, that Crabbe and Goyle had come out of the shack alongside Theodore Nott.

"Yeah, Malfoy," Nott added, "if you're going to tell us the Dark Lord has some important job that only you can do, I wanna see some proof. So, where's the Mark?"

Pansy laughed uncomfortably, her voice loud in the silence that fell after Theodore's question. She looked around at the group and quickly shut up.

"You think I'm going to show you?" Malfoy asked incredulously. "I've told you I've got a job to do, and that should be good enough for the likes of you."

"My father said it burns and never seems to heal up all the way," Crabbe said out of the blue. He looked surprised that the words even came out of his mouth when he noticed the way the group stared at him.

"I'm going," Malfoy announced, turning away from the boys.

"You're all talk, Malfoy," Nott said, sneering. "No one would ever believe the Dark Lord's asked a pathetic ponce like you to do anything. Especially after your father disgraced himself last year!"

Malfoy whipped back around, fists clenched. "Don't talk about my father," he ground out fiercely. "Believe it or not. I don't care. I'm going to do this, and I'm not going to let you lot stop me from finishing what I've started."

With that, he marched off toward the path back to Hogwarts. Harry, Hermione, and Ron stayed crouched behind the bush as the rest of the Slytherins picked their way through the trees after him. It was only after she stood back up that Hermione turned slightly and saw Padma Patil hovering close by, camouflaged slightly behind a tree. The other girl noticed her and startled, running a hand across the back of her glistening cheeks. Had she been crying? Padma shook her head at Hermione and then stepped back fully behind the tree as the boys began moving again.

As they walked back to the castle and Harry immediately began to assert his beliefs about Malfoy again, Hermione was silent, not listening to her friends. Instead, she wondered about the look of utter despair she'd seen on Padma's face and why it made her so worried about the questions she already had about Malfoy and his so-called "job."