Hello everyone! Sorry for the shorter chapter and longer wait from last time. These last couple weeks have been a bit hectic—if you will indulge me a moment to get just a bit personal, I am currently in the process of trying to buy a home, which is...not the easiest task in this current financial climate, and not the best thing for my own mental health. It has been very stressful, and will likely continue to be stressful for some time, so prepare for these chapters to take a while to get through.

Which of course means this is the perfect time to mention that I started another fanfic—hahaha, I make terrible life decisions! Anyway, the fanfic is my first ever Naruto fic, and is titled Jiongu: The Threads of Fate. It was recently added last week, though I had been working on it for a while before I returned here so there's already three chapters for it. I hope those of you that enjoy Naruto fanfics enjoy Jiongu—I have high hopes for it moving forward.

Anyway, self-promotion and self-destruction aside, let's get on with the chapter~!

Chapter 9: Memories

Midnight smirked to herself as she strut back up towards Gryffindor tower, her long black tail swaying contently behind her. Tonight had gone well enough, she supposed. She didn't want to boast or anything, but she felt fairly confident that she had done a good job convincing her darling nephew not to mess with her master anymore.

Her cattish grin spread wider across her feline face as she remembered the look of terror in the young Malfoy's eyes—oh, it gave her shivers! It had been so long since the last time anyone had looked at her like that, not since her little visit to the Longbottoms nearly fourteen years ago at least. In a way, it felt good to step back into her old self again—oh sure, she had her moments to let her wicked side out while subtly guiding her master towards darker and truer paths to power, but sometimes it just felt nice to go all out and absolutely terrify some poor miserable sap.

Frankly, the whole ordeal—the sneaking around at night, scaring the utter daylights out of someone close to her, breaking into a secure room in the castle—it all felt so good. Like she was back in Hogwarts herself again, butting heads with those troublemakers in Gryffindor and giving them hell twice over for every prank they pulled on a fellow snake. Back before lines had been drawn, sides taken, and lives lost…

Midnight paused, a shiver running through her at that thought. It had never given her much grief in the past, that she could recall, but now…the memories tugged at her heart in an odd way. It…confused her, and she didn't like it.

Frowning, she shook her head and continued wandering off—in any case, she'd handled her nephew well enough. A few harmless nightmares should be more than enough to keep him in line and off her darling Harry's case. Perhaps she could drop by again a few weeks in, just to remind him of their little arrangement…

Of course, if he did step a toe out of line now, well…he wouldn't get off with just pranks and nightmares as a punishment, oh no.

Midnight's eyes narrowed, and her tail flicked. She certainly hoped it wouldn't come to that—as little as she and her baby sister saw eye to eye, she'd hate to leave Draco tortured and broken, if only for the pain it would leave Narcissa with. Thankfully, Draco had clearly inherited his spine from his father—there would be no fear of him stepping out of place anytime soon, she was sure.

Satisfied with her thoughts on the entire ordeal, Midnight continued to silently saunter through the quiet halls of the castle, slowly making her way up the steps before finally arriving outside the Gryffindor common room's portal, hidden behind the painting of the Fat Lady.

Or, rather, the empty painting of the Fat Lady.

Midnight blinked, sitting down expectantly at the foot of the frame, before yowling with frustration.

And this was why she absolutely hated Gryffindor's secret passage. The barrels that hid the Hufflepuff entrance were always in the same place, and the passcode was always the same. So was the stone wall and password to get into Slytherin House. Ravenclaw's was a bit more tricky with their riddles, but any witch worth their salt could out-logic the eagle statue out front. But of course, Gryffindor would be the one to predicate whether anyone could enter or exit the common room based on the whims of an ephemeral painting that wasn't even there half the time!

Midnight hissed and spat, swiping rudely at the bottom corner of the painting. Frustrated, she began to yowl again, loud and obnoxious, her voice carrying through the castle by the thick stone walls that surrounded her. Over and over, her cries rose and tumbled down, her silky black form rising up to attack the frame of the painting with her long claws—the longer she was ignored, the more she attacked, and screamed, and cried to be let in to her master.

"Oi, shut it, cat!" one of the paintings on the other wall exclaimed. "We're sleeping!"

The shout finally made Midnight stop, turning to shoot a glare to the painting behind her. Still, she had yet to hear any movement on the other side of the painting, so it was probably fair to assume her attempts had been in vain.

Frowning, Midnight turned around a few times before curling up on the cool stone floor just to the side of the Fat Lady's painting. It would be the worst night of sleep for her in months, she was sure—unable to drop her animagus form and cuddle up with her handsome master, feel his body against hers, and just lose herself in the soft warmth of a good mattress and blankets. She curled instinctively tighter in on herself, a shiver running through her small frame.

Hopefully her master would have a better night's sleep than her.

He did not.

Harry had not gone to sleep easy, the worry for his feline familiar leaving him tossing and turning through the night. Neville and Ron had attempted to ease his worries, pointing out again just how resourceful and intelligent his cat seemed to be—surely she wouldn't get herself into trouble—but Harry wasn't so sure. He'd remembered the dour and furious way Malfoy had acted through the rest of the day. If the blonde ponce got his hands on his familiar and did something to her…Harry didn't know what he'd do, but it certainly made those spellbooks Midnight had been bringing him over the summer far more enticing.

Tossing and turning, Harry eventually fell into a fitful night's sleep, with dreams of emptiness and abandonment tugging at his heart. For a flash, he saw an image of Malfoy, his face twisted into a wicked grin, as he held a black shape down in a large barrel of water—then the image changed and the shape was suddenly larger, and more human-like, purple eyes staring vacantly up—

Harry sat up with a jolt, gasping as his heart beat faster, harder in his chest. His eyes glanced blindly around him, before he shook his head and clumsily grabbed for his wand and his glasses. Flicking his wrist, and with a softly murmured "Tempus" under his breath, he watched as a small cloud appeared at the tip of his wand, faintly glowing as numbers appeared before him.

3:33 AM. Not even close to morning.

Groaning, Harry flicked the cloud of time away and curled up uncomfortably under his covers. There was no way he was going back to sleep after that, though—that haunted, dead look would be stuck in his mind for weeks, he was sure.

He tossed and turned about for another few minutes before groaning and sitting up. Well, if he wasn't going to get any more sleep, he may as well do something productive with the rest of his night. Careful not to wake the rest of the dormitory, Harry quietly slid out of his bed and wandered over to his trunk. His gaze drifted to his father's journal again, before turning and lifting his textbook for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Carefully, he quietly crawled back into bed, tugging the curtains of his four-poster tightly shut around him and igniting the tip of his wand with a faint lumos spell, cracking the textbook open on his sheets. The memories of his dream still haunted him in the back of his mind, the horrified and pained look in the woman's face…he didn't want to ever see that look in anyone's face again—not his friends, and certainly not her.

With that in mind, his gaze drifted down to the notes in the margins, written in such an elegant script, and began to read.

As the morning daylight began to filter through the large window into the boys' dormitory, Harry finally shut his textbook and sat back.

Littered around him were papers covered with scrawled notes and questions, the ink staining his fingers as he'd worked rather clumsily in the low light on his bed. The notes ranged from spells that had been mentioned in the margins, hastily scrawled out for his own understanding, and putting his own thoughts to paper, looking back on them for some clarity. It was, in a word, a mess.

The sound of motion beyond his curtains roused him from his thoughts, and hastily Harry gathered up his notes, stuffing them into his textbook for later. He didn't know exactly how Dean or Seamus would react to his early-morning studies, but he doubted Ron or Neville would appreciate it much. Once he felt confident he'd squirreled away his nightly studies well enough, he pulled open the curtain and stepped out to join his roommates.

So far just Neville and Seamus were up and about, though Ron was in the middle of rolling out of his four-poster beside him, yawning away his lingering sleep. "Ahhhh~ mornin', Harry," he muttered, blinking his eyes a few times. "How'd you sleep?"

Harry flinched but offered a sheepish shrug in reply. "I mean…not well, I guess."

Seamus snorted. "Even I coulda told ya that—have ya looked at yerself, Harry? You're a mess, mate!"

Ron blinked through his drowsiness again, a bit of clarity coming to his face. "Damn, he's right—bloody hell, mate, you look like you pulled an all-nighter with Hermione again. You doing alright?"

Harry's face went a bit flush but he shook his head. "No, I'm fine. I just couldn't sleep, worrying about Midnight, so I…thought I'd do a bit of light reading?" Immediately he regretted his choice of words.

"This—" Ron gestured to Harry's ink-stained hands— "is light? God, now you sound like Hermione, too!"

"Careful, Ron, she might hear you," Neville chuckled, before looking back to Harry. "Well, hope the 'light' reading helped."

Before Harry could respond, the conversation was interrupted by a series of hard and sharp knocks to the dormitory's door. Ron paled immediately—there was no way she'd actually heard him teasing her, had she?—but his worry was quickly abated as the door swung open, revealing not a bushy-haired brunette girl, but a tall and broad-shouldered young man, looking to be nearly twenty, with a striking fierceness to his appearance.

"Sorry for the interruption, lads, but is Potter up—ah, Potter!"

Oliver Wood grinned as he took stock of his favorite Seeker, though his grin wilted after a second's assessment. "Looks like someone woke up on the wrong end of the broomstick—you alright there, Potter?"

Harry blinked in surprise, straightening himself up a bit as he approached his Quidditch captain. "Uh, just didn't sleep great, I guess?"

"Well that's no good! We need you at peak performance, now!" Oliver huffed, a cocky grin on his face as he jabbed his finger towards the young seeker. "This is my last year as captain, Potter, and your third as our seeker. Third time's the charm, right? This year, we're taking the Cup, or die trying, yeah?"

Harry nodded. "Um, yeah, of course."

"Excellent," Oliver gave a nod, then turned to bound right out of the dormitory again. "Then I'll see you down by the lake in ten—team's sticking to a strict work-out schedule for the season, and we will not be slacking, Potter! Move out!"

And with that, the door slammed behind him.

It took a minute for Harry to fully grasp what Oliver said—though, to be fair, anything that Oliver Wood said came with a certain force and charisma that was both hard to ignore or understand half the time. When he did, though, his eyes went wide with realization, and he jolted with action, turning and rushing towards the showers. "Fuck, it's today?"

The other boys in the room, who were in various stages of getting ready to start their own lazy Saturdays with no classes, watched Harry rush into the boys' washroom. "What's today?" Neville asked.

"Start of Quidditch practice!" Harry hollered back as he turned on the shower—swearing, as it started up cold. All this magic, and they couldn't get the showers to run hot right away? "I thought Professor McGonnagal said they were starting next Saturday, not this one!"

Ron chuckled a bit at his best friend's plight. "I mean, she did say 'this next Saturday', so I guess today counts as the next Saturday, mate."

"Well then she should've specified!" Harry huffed, hurrying out as he finished drying off. His hair was even more a mess than usual, but it would be even worse after Oliver's workout, so he really didn't care. Throwing open his wardrobe, he began throwing out his workout gear. "Honestly, gonna run me fucking ragged, the absolute—"

"Mrow?"

The sound stopped Harry in his tracks, and he jerked up in surprise. Whirling around, he found the dormitory door open once more—and padding into the room on small light feet was a familiar black cat. Oliver Wood stood in the open doorway, a confused look on his face as he looked back over to Harry.

"Oh, by the way, Potter, this cat was sitting outside the common room—Bell said it's yours, I think?" he frowned. "Gotta keep a closer eye on your familiar, mate, could get itself into trouble. Alright, meet you at the lake in five—don't be late!"

And again, the door slammed shut behind him, but this time Harry didn't pay it near as much mind. Instead, a wave of relief washed over him, and he dropped to his knees, reaching out as Midnight padded closer. His hand met the top of her head, and the cat purred with relief, her eyes sliding shut as she nuzzled into her master's touch. He sighed, slowly stroking down her back, his worry now gone.

Around them, the other boys of the third year dormitory shared a sigh of relief as well, glad this little disappearing act had resolved itself—they really hadn't wanted to spend their free day scouring the castle for the cat. Sharing a look, the four quickly began to get dressed and make their way out of the dorm, leaving Harry with his familiar.

After a moment, Harry shook his head and sighed. "You were out there all night, Midnight? Why didn't you come in?" he murmured.

His cat responded by pulling back and fixing him with a flat stare.

Harry winced at the piercing look, slowly pulling back. "Oh, right…well, you're here now, at least!" He stood again and finished pulling on his clothes for the morning's workout. "And, as glad as I am that you made it back, I've got a workout this morning, so…maybe stay here for a bit?"

He offered a sheepish grin, which Midnight did not enjoy, but before she could offer any kind of reply, Harry hefted his bag of Quidditch gear, turned, and began dashing out of the dormitory, hurrying out as fast as he could—Oliver was notorious for his ridiculously punishing workouts for those that arrived late to practice, and he did not want to end up on that list. So, without another word said, he slammed the door behind him and rushed down the steps, out of the common room below.

Leaving Midnight all by herself.

Alone.

After all night alone, too.

The cat's eyes narrowed and her ears flattened back with annoyance at being ignored so quickly…before she shrugged and strut up to her master's bed. As the room was empty, she felt no reason to hide her form any further, and in a flash, Bellatrix Lestrange appeared and plopped down onto the bed with a content sigh.

Well, it wasn't as nice as with her master's body, but it would do after the night laying out on the cold stone floor. She sighed, slowly sprawling out to take a bit of a nap…before pausing as she felt her hand brush something hard.

She blinked, grabbing the object and pulling it out, her eyes narrowing with interest as she saw the Defense textbook she'd given him at the start of the term. Even more interesting, though, were the multiple papers slightly peeking out from the edges…notes, perhaps? Interest in the content and wisdom she'd offered? She felt her annoyance with her master subside into a very pleased cat-like grin.

Progress was progress, after all.

Just one bed over, a certain rat stared in terror from under the blanket he had been napping under. He had felt something was off about the black cat he'd seen with Harry, but he just chalked it up to cats in general—he wasn't a fan of them, for obvious reasons, so he'd just ignored her as best as he could.

And then she'd transformed into the naked form of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Scabbers remained absolutely motionless as he watched her arch and lay back comfortably on the Potter boy's bed, his heart beating a mile a minute. She was here? She'd come with them, disguised as a cat? There was no way, he was going mad, clearly—all these years of hiding as a rat had finally done his sanity in! There was no way she was actually here, right? This had to be a terrible nightmare! Yes, that was it, that was all that it was!

Quietly, the rat scurried further into the bed, until the figure of Bellatrix Lestrange was out of his field of vision, and restlessly curled up to try and sleep. It was difficult, of course, with the mental image of the black cat suddenly transforming into the terrifying beauty that had haunted his nightmares since Hogwarts, but eventually, he restlessly found sleep again.

Surely, surely, this was just a horrible nightmare.

"Alright, I think that's enough of a warm-up," Oliver Wood stated with a nod, looking back over his team with a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. "Let's break for a hot five, then let's get some broomwork in—you doing alright there, Potter? Spinnet?"

"Yes"/"No," the two replied, Harry bent over and leaning against one of the tall posts for the Quidditch pitch stands while Alicia had elected to completely face-fault into the grass of the Quidditch field and lay there motionless aside from a few muffled groans.

Despite Harry's best efforts, he had indeed ended up showing up late for the warm-ups, and so Oliver had levied a punishment on him. For every half-minute he'd been late, he would have five-pound weights added to his person, to carry as he did the full run around the lake, the morning stretches, push-ups and sit-ups, and then an additional run around the lake. He was thankful he was only a couple minutes late—Alicia had shown up five minutes late, and he'd ended up nearly having to drag her the rest of the way through.

None of this seemed to flap Oliver's mood in the slightest, as he merely chuckled at the two and shook his head. "Ah, chin up, lad and lass, we haven't even gotten started yet!" Oliver grinned, and jogged off into the Gryffindor team lockers to collect their practice supplies.

Harry watched him jog off before shaking his head, panting. "I swear, he's not human. There's no way..."

"Mmph," Alicia groaned, rolling her head over towards Harry and blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "You go for his legs, when he trips I'll go for his arms, we can toss him into the lake and leave him for the squid to deal with."

Harry chuckled and shook his head, the mental image of a water-logged Oliver dragging himself out of the lake flashing through his mind for a moment. It certainly was a tempting offer, though one he doubted they could get away with…after all, there were four other teammates they'd have to worry about…

"Oi, you two talking about hoisting our fearless leader on his own petard?" Fred suddenly asked as he and George stepped up to them, the latter dropping down to sit beside Alicia commiseratingly.

"Because, if so, you have our support," George added with a grin.

"Bloke's gone completely mental—"

"—obsessed, even!—"

"—needs a good cold splash to cool himself off, I reckon—"

"—or two," the twins finished off with a smirk.

Harry rolled his eyes at the two of them, pushing off the beam as he finished catching his breath. "No, no one's actually talking about jumping Wood, Gred, Forge, we're just a bit out of it."

"Speak for yourself, Potter," Alicia huffed, rolling over to smirk up at George. "Actually, you two might have some better ideas of how to get him to chill out—how're those sweets of yours going?"

The twins shared a wide grin and leaned in to start describing some of the ridiculous cursed candies they'd been brainstorming, and Harry shared a smirk with Alicia as he listened in. He'd sampled some of their sweets his first night back at Hogwarts—the two had passed them around with all the guys on the boys'-half of the dormitories—but by their discussion, it was clear that had just been the tip of the iceberg when it came to the party favors and pranking paraphernalia they had in the works.

They were just getting to the matchstick snaps—pretzel-rod-like snacks that were enchanted to make the consumer begin hiccupping in bursts of fire for up to a minute—when the slam of a door hitting their ears notified them of Oliver's return. Alicia sighed and slowly stood up, dusting bits of grass off of her training clothes.

"Alright, everyone rested and hydrated—don't need any of you passing out on me on our first day back," Oliver exclaimed as he arrived, dropping the large case of practice Quidditch supplies at his feet.

"We're ready as we'll ever be," Angelina Johnson replied, walking up with Katie Bell from the other side of the field, the whole team congregating as one. Oliver nodded to all of them, before turning to pace behind the case.

"Very good, very good—now then, this is our last chance—my last chance as all of yours team captain, your last chance with this specific team—for us to win the Cup. We've had some really close calls these last couple years—we nearly had it two years ago, and last year the whole season was prematurely canceled due to the whole Chamber of Secrets debacle, but this year—" he glanced firmly at all the players gathered together— "this year, it's our year. The big one. The one we've—"

"—the one we've all been waiting for," the rest of the team repeated.

"Oliver, you've said that for nearly five years now, mate," Fred exclaimed.

"And this will be the last year I say it," Oliver barked in reply. "We have one last chance at this—after that, it's on all of you to keep this team moving forward, but at the very least, I want our team moving forward with the legacy of an inter-House Quidditch tournament cup carrying us forward! And this is our last year to really work for that, so I'm going to work us hard, drill us hard, until we are the fit flying force to break our losing streak once and for all!"

"To that end!" Oliver snapped his attention to Alicia, Katie, and Angelina. "Ladies, we're gonna be working on your fly plays today, starting with the Jabberwok—grab your brooms and meet me in the air!"

As the three girls nodded and hurried off, Oliver then turned his attention to Harry, Fred, and George. "Potter, you haven't missed us a single snitch that you weren't there to catch, but you got hit bad last season and that's something we simply can't afford! We're gonna take your reflexes to the next level by the time we're through—Fred, George, I want you two working on nailing Harry as hard as you can on the other half of the field, alright? Good!"

Before either of the twins could reply, their team captain had turned and rushed off, hand snapping to his broomstick and in one fluid motion mounting it and kicking off to rush into the air over the Quidditch pitch to meet with their chasers. The trio watched them from below before Fred shook his head and began marching off.

"Fucking mental, he is," he muttered, picking up the beater bats and marching to the other end of the field.

"Gonna work us to death, he is," George agreed, dragging the squirming bludger-box behind him.

Harry nodded, offering his own commiserating smirk as he retrieved his Nimbus 2000 and followed after them. Once they felt they were a good enough distance from the ladies ducking and diving about the goal posts trying out their new plays on their keeper and captain, Harry swung his legs onto his broom and kicked off, closely followed behind by Fred and George.

Immediately, Harry sighed—there had been much he'd missed of Hogwarts over the summer, but by far the hardest loss had been flying. There was something just so freeing of being on a broom, high off the ground and the tethers it tried to hold to him. No, up here, he could just let himself be, free and himself, like he couldn't be anywhere else. The hippogriff had offered a bit of that sensation as well, but the primal chaos of Buckbeak's flight had nothing on the calm freedom of a broomstick flight.

And then a ball suddenly catapulted in front of him, flying five feet in front of his face, and he remembered why they were here.

As the ball began to zip back around towards them, Fred flew up to float across from Harry, giving him a bit of a lopsided grin. "Sorry Harry, but as much as we disagree with our fearless leader's routines—"

"—we do still need to get back into shape a bit," George finished, sweeping up to hover behind the bespeckled seeker. He grinned as Harry spun around to look at him. "Don't worry—"

"—we won't go as hard as he wants us to—"

"—just a good warm-up match to get us back in the swing of things—"

"—so try not to get hit!" the twins chorused with identically malicious grins that did nothing to ease Harry's quickly rising concerns.

The next half-hour passed in a literal blur as Harry dove, dipped, ducked, and did his damned near darnedest to dodge every death-ball directed his way. The crack and scream of the hard bludger smacking against beater bats and hurtling through the sky filled the air, along with the trio's laughs and screams. More than a few times, Harry felt the bludger nearly graze past him, the breeze tickling where it missed, and he found himself trying out more and more daring broom-tricks to narrowly avoid possible certain doom.

Harry was thankful the twins pulled their shots most of the time—he'd seen first hand what the two could do with a bludger, and it wasn't fun—and every few minutes he'd call a break, looking for some help with a particular maneuver. The constant barrage was reminding him very much of the enchanted bludger last year, and having a better way to absolutely dodge it each time was at the top of his priorities—something the twins were more than eager to lend some suggestions towards.

They finally came to a stop as Harry pulled out of a nose-bleeding 90-degree drop, adding a bit of a spin to his feint before pulling up just as the grass brushed his feet, and the twins caught the bludger and wrestled it into its box. "Alright, I think that's enough!" Fred shouted.

"Before you break your neck, at least," George huffed, shaking his head as he fell into place beside Harry. "Bloody hell, Harry, you know there's some professional players that don't pull the batshit feints you do?"

"They also don't have as crazy of partners to train with as the two of you," Harry quipped back with a grin.

"Eh, true enough—" Fred nodded, throwing his arm over his twin's shoulders.

"—no one can do it quite like us," George agreed, matching his brother's pose.

Harry chuckled and shook his head, slowly stumbling back towards the sidelines to catch a break, his body shaking a bit as the adrenaline rush slowly ebbed back out of him—his bravado was breaking a bit after that last dive, and he needed a moment to gather himself together.

Dropping by the small bag of gear he'd grabbed in his dorm, Harry's attention turned up towards the western side of the field. Up high, he could clearly see the three chasers clustered together, Oliver floating nearby, likely offering suggestions or pointers. He sighed, pulling the bag close and rummaging through it—if Wood had it his way, he'd keep them going all day long, but he had a feeling that after another half-hour of this, they'd be done, but until Oliver needed him again, he'd just rest.

With that in mind, his thoughts turned back to his morning's studies, and he gripped the book in his bag, pulling out…not his Defense textbook, but his father's journal, surprisingly?

Harry blinked, for a moment caught off-guard and disappointed in himself for leaving it. It didn't last long, though, as he smiled fondly at the old leather notebook. It had been a while since the last time he'd picked it up—not since before arriving in Hogwarts, at least. He smiled, cracking it open again, and flipping to a random page near the middle.

June 19th, 1981

Padfoot came by around noon today. He said he was coming to discuss Order talk, but Lily and I both knew it was just so the mangy mutt could come and visit with his godson. Harry's not even a year old yet, but already the two are as thick as thieves! He's always happy to see his doting dogfather, and Padfoot's absolutely shameless in how much he loves the attention.

Though, once Harry was put down, the Order talk did come up. Moony's last mission was a rough one, though I'm not much surprised—the full moon was just a few nights ago, and he's always been a bit woozy the days after. Wormtail's been doing some scouting, but it's slow going—I love him to bits, but he's just not cut out for this war. None of us are, I guess…

Padfood had his own story to tell, though—apparently he crossed the Black Queen on his latest outing. He'd heard a rumor about an attack going down at one of the other light-leaning houses and showed up in time to push them back—but she was there. First time they'd crossed wands since seventh year, I imagine.

He doesn't say it, but I know—he misses her. We all do. Life was easier back in Hogwarts, when the most that divided us were house colors, and petty arguments were resolved with schoolyard pranks. Now we're divided by something bigger, and all the fun from before is gone, replaced with curses and hate.

I wish I knew why she left…

June 20th, 1981

Today Lily made a pie! Custard, too, and it was actually pretty good!

Harry snorted a bit at the sudden tonal whiplash. It felt odd, laughing after such a somber note, but he just couldn't help it—he could almost feel his father's infectious humor through the yellowed pages of the journal. He smiled a bit as he continued reading down the page—apparently for as good a cook his mother was, she was a horrendous baker, and this was one of the few times one of her desserts had actually ended up decent enough to eat.

"And what is it you're laughing about there?"

Harry glanced up to see both Fred and George approaching him, both of them having shucked their practice padding and looking a bit haggard themselves. Their attention was up on the three chasers in the sky, who were now working on their mid-air passing game, but that attention was broken as they looked to Harry expectantly.

"Come on, now, what's up?"

Harry blinked owlishly for a moment, looking between them and his journal a moment, before shrugging and gesturing a bit with the book. "Reading my dad's journal—I got it this summer, when I visited my family's vault, thought I'd read a bit."

"Your dad's?" Fred echoed, blinking in surprise.

"Mate, that's great," George offered a bit of a grin. "What'd he write about?"

Harry shrugged, thumbing through the pages idly. "A lot of stuff—this was his last journal, so it's a lot of talk about the war, hiding from the Death Eaters—I'm guessing Voldy's followers?" He glanced up to the two, and they both nodded— "and talking about his friends and family."

"Oh, friends?"

"Like who?"

"Anyone we might know?" the twins asked in unison, very much intrigued. To their chagrin, however, Harry could only shrug in reply.

"No, not really," he chuckled. "I mean, I know my mom's mentioned in here, and Dumbledore is mentioned from time to time, but the rest—I guess my dad liked giving people nicknames, because everyone else is mentioned by some silly name that can't possibly be real. I mean, really, who'd call their kid Wormtail, or Padfoot, or—"

"Did you just say Wormtail?"

Harry jerked back as suddenly both of the twins had lunged towards him, staring at him with wide eyes and dropped jaws. Their reaction was so shocking, he almost threw his journal, but he quickly pulled it to himself, looking between the two of them incredulously.

"Wait, you know Wormtail?"

"And Padfoot," Fred affirmed with a stiff nod.

"Does he mention anyone else?" George asked.

"Like a Prongs—"

"—or a Moony?"

Harry's eyes went wide behind his glasses and he nodded, quickly flipping to the page he'd just read. "Y-yeah, actually—not Prongs, I've never seen that name, but Moony! All three of them, actually—they're written down right here!"

He gestured to the page, and both Fred and George snapped their gazes down to it. A minute passed before they looked back to Harry, then to each other, before grabbing each other by their shirt collars and stumbling a few feet away. Harry watched on in bewilderment as the two murmured in hushed tones—he could just make out a few words like "fucking how?!" and "there's no way" and perhaps a "does that mean that he's…"

Eventually, the twins stumbled back to Harry, looking somewhere between sheepish and aloof. "Harry dearest," Fred began, fixing Harry with a serious stare. "Did your dad ever mention a group when writing about these friends of his?"

"Like, did he refer to them by anything?" George asked, matching his twin's expression one-to-one. "Like a group, a team, like say—"

"—the Marauders?"

The question caught him off-guard and he struggled to reply, before the light switch went on in his head. "A-actually, I think he might've…" he murmured, and began flipping through hastily. The twins quickly dropped to kneel beside him as he flipped to the page, leaning over to read with him.

"February 1st, 1981," Harry read aloud. "...so good to have Moony over tonight…looking better than he was last week…ah, here it is!—it's been so long since we had the whole Marauders together—we should really invite Padfoot and Wormtail for dinner, too. This war is hard enough without seeing our friends…"

Harry glanced up to Fred and George as he finished reading, but the looks on their faces made him flinch back in shock. They looked as if they'd just seen a ghost—and not a good one like Nearly-Headless Nick, he supposed.

After a moment, the two looked to each other and gave a single nod, before standing and looping their arms under Harry's armpits. "Alright, come on!" Fred muttered, and they began dragging Harry along, the bewildered ravenette struggling onto his feet as he was dragged further towards the Gryffindor locker rooms.

"Wait, what?" he sputtered.

"We need to show you something!" George muttered.

Once they were a decent ways away from the pitch, the two let Harry down. "Sorry, Harry, it's just—well, we never thought we'd meet another person who knew about them!" Fred muttered in a hushed voice.

"Who?" Harry asked.

"The Marauders!" the twins chorused in unison.

"They were the most infamous band of pranksters and troublemakers in Hogwarts' whole history!" George exclaimed.

"Filch has a whole wall dedicated to all the pranks they pulled that he couldn't catch them doing," Fred added.

"There's some legendary shit on that wall," George noted with a wistful sigh.

"Truly marvelous," Fred nodded in agreement, wiping a tear from his eye. "They were our inspiration—we owe everything to them."

Harry blinked in surprise, looking between Fred and George for a moment, before a grin slowly spread across his face. "Wicked…I…I had no idea. I mean, I knew my father was a bit of a troublemaker, everyone says that…but that sounds amazing. How do you know so much?"

The twins chuckled, pulling slightly sheepish smiles. "Well, we got sent to Filch's office a lot during our first two years, so we got to see that wall of their accomplishments quite a lot," Fred admitted with a shameless smirk.

"But the real secret came with finding this little beauty," George grinned, pulling out a folded up sheet of parchment and holding it out to Harry.

Harry stared at the parchment in confusion, before taking it and beginning to unfold it, his hands shaking a bit with nerves. Whatever he'd hoped to find, though…didn't show. Instead, by the time he'd fully unfolded the sheet of paper, he found himself staring at little more than a blank length of yellowed parchment. Frowning, he glanced up to Fred and George.

"But…there's nothing here…" he murmured, before drifting off.

There'd been nothing in Tom's diary, either…was this somehow similar? The thought gave him pause, and he almost dropped the sheet before remembering that it was related to his father in some way. It wouldn't be as malicious as the diary was…would it?

Thankfully, Fred spoke up before Harry's thoughts could spiral any further. "There's nothing there—yet! Like I said, the Marauders did some wicked shit, Harry, but this might be the most wicked yet—George?"

George nodded to his twin, pulling his wand out of the holster on his hip. Tapping it to the sheet, he cleared his throat, then— "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

And at once, the parchment in Harry's hands flared to life—lines of ink and quill scratches darted across the sheet, rippling out from the tip of George's wand to the edges of the paper. Words began to appear in a curious cursive scrawl, denoting a large ovular shape as the Quidditch pitch, with four dots drifting back and forth over it—with names attached to them, following them as they darted back and forth.

Oliver Wood.

Katie Bell.

Alicia Spinnet.

Angelina Johnson.

Harry's eyes went wide again, his jaw dropping as he looked further down—the map continued into a small hallway, and sitting right there were three more dots, accompanied by three names—Harry Potter, Fred Weasley, George Weasley. He shook his head in fascination, flipping through the other lengths of the map he'd passed before, seeing stretched of grounds, the castle entrance, the first floor—and then he reached the front of the map again, the front page, and he sucked in his breath in shock.

"Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are proud to present…the Marauders' Map?"

He looked up to Fred and George, the both of them beaming. "This has been the secret to our success these past few years," Fred grinned.

"This map shows everything," George noted, "every secret entrance and exit—"

"—every hidden passageway—"

"—even where every single person is at any point, ever!"

"And your dad was one of the ones that made it!" Fred exclaimed in shock. "This is amazing!"

"You're telling me…" Harry murmured, shaking his head. His hands gently caressed the parchment over the name "Prongs", the name feeling so strange and yet familiar as well. Once more, he was holding something that had been his father's—something incredible, something unique—something he'd never heard of before.

He held the parchment a moment longer, before holding it back towards the twins. "Thank you for showing this to me," he said with a smile. The twins, however, gently pushed the parchment back.

"Oi, we're not just showing this to you," George said with a smile.

"We're giving it to you," Fred declared. "I mean, you're Prongs' son—you should definitely have it!"

Harry's eyes went wide, looking back to the parchment again. "I—"

"Besides, we already know all the secret routes and what not," George chuckled.

"And we've gotten pretty good at avoiding Filch and his cat anyways," Fred admitted with a shrug.

"We're only here for another two years—"

"—but you've got another four after this one—"

"—so you might as well have it!"

Harry honestly didn't know what to say—he felt his throat clench up a bit as he held the map. Another piece of his parents' legacy, back in his hands…it honestly felt too good to be true. He shook his head, finally giving them both a grin.

"Thanks," he simply said. The twins just smiled back, Fred reaching up to ruffle his hair a bit.

"Ah, don't mention it—seriously, don't, this map has to stay a secret," he said with a firm tone.

"To that end," George noted, tapping the map again, "whenever you're done with it, just say—"

"—Mischief Managed—" the twins said in unison, and before Harry's eyes, the ink receded back into the tip of George's wand, leaving a completely blank sheet of parchment in his hands again.

"—that way, even if someone finds it on you—"

"—they don't know what it is," Fred finished with a nod.

Harry nodded in return, staring breathlessly at the surprising display. "Now that is wicked," he chuckled, grinning back up to the twins.

"I know, right?" Fred smirked, before clapping his hands. "Anyways—we should probably get back out there! Don't want Wood to run us any more ragged than he already has, am I right?"

"Couldn't agree more, brother of mine!" George agreed, and hurried out of the tunnel after Fred.

Harry watched them hurry ahead of him for a moment before looking back to the paper in his hands again. The smile flitted across his face, a feeling of warmth in his chest, and he slipped the paper into his pocket, hurrying out after them into the field once more.

Unaware of the strange dot that, had the map been open, he would've noticed suddenly appear on the outskirts of the grounds.

It had taken far too long to get here.

The Scottish highlands were no easy trek, not as a man nor as a dog, but without a wand he had little choice in the matter, and he absolutely had to make haste. She was with him, and he could only imagine the terrible things she was planning for the boy once she got the chance to. If she had a wand, they'd be terrible, but arguably without a wand, it'd be even worse.

It was surprising, though, that she hadn't made a move while in the Alley. Then again, he hadn't exactly been able to make a move to meet him, either—the streets were too guarded, and there were too many people about to reveal himself. Perhaps she was thinking along the same lines?

Then again, when had Bella ever been known for her restraint?

His coal-black eyes narrowed with an intense fury. Something was going on here, something he very much disliked. Whatever her reason for staying her hand, it couldn't be anything good, and it made him shiver with anger. If she dared lay a single finger on his godson, she'd be blown to bits, former favorite cousin or not. Even if he didn't have a wand, he'd find a way to make her pay.

With that thought in mind Sirius Black reached the final steps of the secret passage under the Whomping Willow. Through the small crawlspace out, he could see the shape of the castle looming ahead. Despite his fury in his heart, he did feel a bit of nostalgia tug at his heart, seeing the place that had once been a home to his happiest memories once again.

Somewhere, in there, was his godson.