Disclaimer: You recognize it - it came straight from the mind of JK Rowling. Who is not me.

A/N: So we obviously all know how this goes from Harry's perspective but this is Ascella's story so please forgive me any differences and enjoy!

June 1994 - Part 2

If Ascella had thought her declaration to have Lupin and Black reveal if the rat really was a man was to be met without further protestation she was mistaken. Not only Ron, but Harry as well, raised several objections to it, namely that is might hurt the rat if it was just a rat. Ascella, knowing as she did from her study of animagi, knew there would be now adverse affects of the revealing spell if the rat was indeed a rat and had very nearly been unable to hold back an eye roll. Luckily, Hermione interrupted and made a valid point when she broached the question of how Black even knew that Scabbers was Pettigrew in the first place. It was a story even Ascella found she wanted to hear, her eyes almost turning to look to the shell of a man that was her estranged father.

"A fair point," Lupin surmised - seeming far too calm for the serious nature of the material they discussed. They could have almost been back in his classroom having a debate about the best way to deal with a Grindylow, if not for the obvious company of Sirius Black, an unconscious Potions Master and the fact they were in the Shrieking Shack. "How did you find out where he was, Sirius?" he asked, turning to face the man.

Black reached within his robes and produced a newspaper clipping. Ascella faintly remembered it as the one Ron had sent around to all of his friends the past summer - the one with the photo of his family in Egypt and there, on Ron's shoulder, was Scabbers.

"Merlin," Lupin breathed, stepping closer to the photo. "His front paw..."

"What about it?" Ron demanded.

"He's got a toe missing," Black grunted.

"Of course," Lupin mused. "So simple... so brilliant... he cut it off himself?"

Black nodded and explained how Pettigrew had done it right before shouting out that Black had betrayed Lily and James, then blowing up the street and changing into his rat form and leaving Black to take the blame.

Ascella's mind was spinning. It was essentially the same story they'd overheard all those months ago in the Three Broomsticks when their teachers had been talking but it was presented as if it were an alternative reality. Small facts differed but not by enough to make the story implausible. In fact - it made quite a lot of sense actually.

"So what?" Ron demanded again, though Ascella could detect some of the fire had gone out of him. Maybe he too was starting to see how the facts were all pointing to a different conclusion than the one they had believed all year.

"Hadn't you heard, Ron?" Lupin asked. "The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger. Tell me, did you ever wonder why it was Scabbers was missing a toe?"

Ascella honestly hadn't known Scabbers was missing a toe - over the years she'd tried her best to avoid the filthy creature. She tried to take a look now but the rat was still squirming too much on the bed, Ron struggling to contain him.

Black, seeing what she was looking for, jerkily held out the clipping for her instead. Her first instinct was to sneer at him - but something made her hold back. She couldn't say she was ready to just believe the story and make a complete 180 in how she thought about Black but something was happening. Somehow she was finding this story they were telling, instead of sounding fabricated and unbelievable, to fit better into answering all the questions she had begun having about Black over the course of the year. So instead of sneering she reached out a hand and took the clipping, though without looking him in the eye, and quickly pulled it close to her eye to survey the rat sitting on Ron's shoulder, effectively hiding her face as she did so. And there it was. Plain as day, Scabbers missing the same toe as finger that had been found of Pettigrew.

Ascella shuddered at the implications and handed it to Harry who had crept closer to her no doubt to both show his support for her as well as get a closer look at the clipping while Ron continued to defend his rat to Lupin and Black. To Ascella the evidence was only mounting - same finger/toe, his twelve years in the Weasley family, the same twelve years Black had been imprisoned and Harry an orphan, that the rat had started losing weight before Hermione adopted the monstrosity that was her cat, and that said cat - the hairball - was actually far smarter than Ascella wanted to give him credit for. At this point Ascella would be more surprised if the rat was a rat and not the man everyone in the wizarding world had claimed was dead for twelve years as Black and Lupin claimed.

And sure enough - once they'd convinced Ron, and he'd handed the rat off, one quick flash of blue-white light revealed the most rat like looking human male Ascella had ever had the unfortunate luck to lay eyes on.

And her opinion of the man only went from disgust at his appearance to worse - disgust at his very existence. The more he pleaded and cried and squabbled across the dirty floor of the bedroom giving weaker and weaker excuses as to how he couldn't possibly have been the traitor, the more Ascella wanted to kick him right in his rat face.

Ascella's cold look of disgust never left the rat man until she heard Black and Lupin speak about how they'd known there was a traitor in there midst. Black had said that before - when they'd briefly discussed her mother.

"Wait - hold on!" Ascella interrupted. The eyes of the three old friends snapped to her, while her friends stared wide eyed at her outburst from behind them. "You said that before - that you knew there was a traitor. It was - it was because of my mother, wasn't it?"

Black and Lupin nodded once each, eerily in sync with the other. Neither looked like they wanted to talk about this but like hell Ascella would allow that - it was clear her mother's death was as much a part of this betrayal as the talk about making Peter Secret-Keeper for Lily and James was.

"Who betrayed my mother?" Ascella stood her ground and demanded the answer, squaring up to them and standing tall.

Black's eyes slid toward the pitiful man whimpering in the corner.

"I didn't put it together until I was imprisoned - until I knew no other could be the traitor. I'd told him," Black jerked a waved hand at Pettigrew, "Marls and I were doing a patrol. He asked if she was back at her flat after. I should have recognized the disappointment when I said she wasn't. But I stupidly told him no - that she and her whole family were celebrating her brother's birthday at the Manor. We didn't know that the Manor had already been compromised. At first I just thought they targeted her solely for our former relationship - "

"What do you mean former - you two were married!" Ascella interrupted, pointing an accusing finger at him.

Here Black visibly started, then opened his mouth as if to reply, then shut it. And tried again. Who knew how long he might have done that if not for Lupin, who stepped in to explain.

"No body knew, Ascella. Not even me. Not until the night she passed. We all thought they'd broken up after we graduated school."

Here Ascella couldn't help but snort. Passed - what a nice way to phrase murdered. Ignoring Ascella's snort Lupin continued, turning to Black. "I assume you didn't tell me because you thought I the traitor?

Black nodded. "In truth, not even James knew. He had too much else to worry about..."

Ascella's eyes narrowed. She was far from satisfied with the answer. She still had too many questions - like why did everyone think they broke up? Why didn't they actually? Why get married at all then? She'd already determined it couldn't have been a shotgun wedding based on her calculation from the date she'd found back at the end of summer. Ascella was moments away from voicing her doubts, except that Black finally looked up at her and met her eyes.

"I know it's not what you want to hear - " Well he was right about that. "But it is the only explanation I can give. A part of me died the day she did - the day she was murdered."

Ascella drew a quick breath at the use of the word. Murdered. Finally someone said it. And she wasn't sure it was his blunt use of it and therefore acceptance of her mother's horrific cause of death, or if it was the pain in his eyes, that settled and stilled her worries. His clear gray eyes - so alike hers in shape and color - looked just the same as hers when she was hollowed out from crying. Her mother's death had destroyed him, as Harry had once suggested. And even now twelve, almost thirteen, years later - it haunted him.

Ascella remembered suddenly the voice of the man in her memory - the raw pain in it "MACK! Where are you? MACK!", followed by the sobbing and the continued distress in the voice. And for the first time - she was able to reconcile that man with the one before her. They were the same person. For the first time she let herself hope, maybe even believe, that this person before her wasn't a madman, and to perhaps even hope to have a father.

Tears pricked hotly at her eyes. She couldn't speak so she nodded. His explanation would do for now.

It was then that Hermione interrupted.

"Er - Mr. Black - Sirius?" she said.

Black - no, her father - jumped at being addressed such, breaking eye contact with Ascella and turning to look at Hermione like he wasn't quite sure what she was.

"If you don't mind me asking, how - how did you get out of Azkaban, if you didn't use Dark Magic?"

"Thank you!" Pettigrew half gasped, half rasped out. "Exactly! Precisely what I - "

But Ascella and Lupin shut him up with a dark look each. Ascella's father looked to Hermione instead as though he was pondering his response.

"I - am not sure exactly," he slowly began. "I'd been half dead for more than just the time I was in Azkaban." Here he glanced almost imperceptibly toward Ascella, before turning away, swallowing hard and continuing his tale.

"Maybe it's why I pleaded with James and Lily to use Peter instead - I hadn't been thinking clearly for months, not since - " This time Ascella couldn't miss his glance her way. He was talking about her mother again, she could feel it and see the anguish in his eyes confirming it. Then he shook his head like a dog might to clear flies away from their ears and continued.

"At any rate - the mistake was made. I as good as killed them. But I did know I was innocent of the crime I'd been imprisoned for. I think that's the only reason I never lost my mind. It wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't suck it out of me... but it kept me sane and knowing who I am... helped me keep my powers... so when it all became... too much... I could transform in my cell... become a dog."

Ascella couldn't decide how she felt watching her father recount this tale, saying things like 'when it all became... too much...' She could only imagine what he meant when he said that if her reaction when she was near dementors was any indication to go off of. In Azkaban there would be even more of the dreadful things with no chance of escape and if his tale was to be believed - which Ascella was feeling to be more and more likely - then he had more than a few terrible memories to keep him company.

Her father continued his tale about how he saw the photo with Pettigrew, brought in by Fudge the Minister of Magic, and how Pettigrew was at Hogwarts with Harry, about how he became driven to get out and to catch the man - he was the only one that knew the truth of it. He explained about how the dementors can't sense the emotions of animals and so he found relief when he transformed and being as thin as he was he managed to slip through the bars and then swam to the mainland.

"Then I journeyed north and slipped onto the Hogwarts grounds as a dog, I've been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as you father did, Harry..."

Her father looked to Harry now - who stood at an angle to him half in front of Ascella.

"Believe me," he croaked. Ascella's eyes never left her father's seeing the sincerity there. "Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them. A part of me did when this man's treachery took Marls from me - from us." His eyes flicked to Ascella's. Ascella's eyes filled with moisture. "Believe me, Ascella. Harry. Please."

And they did. At long last they did. They didn't need to look at each other to confirm they were on the same wavelength, they just nodded in unison both too choked up to trust themselves to speak.

What happened next disgusted and enraged Ascella - Pettigrew groveled to everyone and anyone in the room. It was pitiful and vial. And everyone was in agreement. And all the groveling did was culminate in him cowering on the floor with Lupin and her father standing shoulder to shoulder wands raised, ready to kill the worthless pile of scum.

"Good-bye, Peter," Lupin said. And good riddance, Ascella thought her lip curling up in a sneer. But then -

"NO!" Harry shouted, jumping in front of Pettigrew facing the wands. "You can't kill him," he said, chest heaving up and down. "You can't."

"What?" Lupin and her father voiced what everyone was thinking.

"Why can't they, mate?" Ascella spoke up. She tried reading what Harry was thinking but he didn't move his eyes from Black and Lupin. She couldn't understand why he of all people was defending that man.

"Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents," her father snarled

Ascella found herself vigorously nodding along - like what the hell Harry. What was her friend thinking?

"This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family," her father continued.

"I know," Harry panted. "We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the dementors... he can go to Azkaban... but don't kill him."

"Harry!" gasped Pettigrew and he flung his arms around Harry's knees. "You - thank you - it's more than I deserve - thank you - "

"Get off me," Harry spat, throwing Pettigrew off of him. There was Ascella's feisty friend.

"Oh, thank Merlin," she broke the serious mood. "You still think he's awful. I was worried for your sanity there for a sec. 'Bout ready to march you up to Madame Pomfrey to have your head looked at."

Everyone turned to look at her, matching looks of incredulity on their faces.

"What?" she said to her friends more than anything. "You know I get extra sarcastic when I'm stressed!" she pouted and crossed her arms.

"ANYway," Harry turned their attention back to the task at hand, addressing the filthy human that was Pettigrew. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it because - I don't reckon my dad would've wanted them to become killers - just for you." He turned to address Lupin and her father. "He can go to Azkaban. If anybody deserves that place, he does."

Lupin and her father nodded. And that was how they found themselves making up a rag tag grouping and headed back through the tunnel, Pettigrew chained to Lupin and Ron. Crookshanks was first followed behind the prisoner and guards, then Snape being controlled by Ascella's father, with Harry, Hermione and Ascella grouped nearby.

Ascella decided to fall back to keep company with Hermione, letting her father and Harry have some time to chat, not sure herself, now that the adrenaline from the evening was starting to ebb, if she was ready to attempt normal conversation with the man.

It wasn't until they were a little way along that she caight Harry throw a quick look her way, his glasses catching the light from her wand and flashing across the walls of the tunnel. She had a brief moment to wonder at his look until her father was falling back, while Snape's head rammed into a particularly low part of the ceiling. Ascella couldn't rule out that her father hadn't done it on purpose.

Ascella felt a rising panic and looked to Hermione to help buffer any conversation, only to discover that her friend had slipped away and was now walking at Harry's side. Ascella spared a glare at the back of her head.

Ascella and her father walked a few more steps in silence - it appeared that neither one of them knew quite how to talk about anything now that the reality of him becoming a free man was hanging over both of their heads. Ascella might have let it keep on like that if it wasn't for Harry throwing a significant and stern look over his shoulder that clearly said, talk to him. Ascella took a deep breath. Fine, she'd talk but if she was going to break the silence then it was going to be with a joke.

"Ooh big bump in the ceiling coming up - raise Snapey up a little higher," Ascella leaned in to hiss at her father, soft enough that Lupin couldn't hear up at the front of their conga line. It was met with a grin and he causally did so. Ascella giggled, feeling relief in the act. She also found it amusing that it was Snape's own wand that Black was using to cause harm to its owner.

Her father glanced at her a little then, his face becoming serious and closed off again, but not enough for Ascella to miss his discomfort. While she felt it too but she had the benefit of not having spent twelve years in the wizarding world's worse prison to think of a quick response.

"Look," she said. "I know this is awkward - I have next to no idea what to say to you. But - I do believe you. It makes so much more sense than anything else. But I still don't know you. I can't trust anything about you yet. Not this fast. We can take our time or something. Figuring all this out."

Ascella felt like she was pleading with him. It felt like she'd just gotten her father back from the metaphorical grave she'd discarded him in when she'd learned about his supposed betrayal and she was terrified she'd lose whatever future they could have before they even had a chance. "And those feelings are on me. I spent years hating you. I don't even know how to be a daughter - well a daughter that's proud to have you as her father at any rate."

He winced at that remark but he also shot her a grin. She felt warmed by it. It was like he was playing with her, teasing her. It helped ease the tension and was remarkably a lot like something she might do if their roles were reversed.

"I understand. I don't even think I know how to be a father, anyway. And no doubt you feel you already have one."

It took Ascella a moment of open mouthed confusion to realize he meant Ted.

"Oh! Yes, Ted is wonderful. He never made me feel unloved. He raised me well. Both of them did," she trailed off there. This conversation couldn't get much more awkward - she couldn't even meet his eye. But Ascella felt she needed to say something else. "It was a good call. Leaving me there, I mean. I think I might be starting to understand a little more. About the why and all that." She looked at his profile now and was surprised to see it was now he that couldn't meet her eye.

"Good," he croaked. He cleared his throat and nodding, continued. "I'm glad. Cause you know - once I'm free. I don't know how this... any of this," he waved his hand around and back and forth between the two of them, "will work. Me - being your father, Harry's godfather, Andy and Ted having raised you, any of it."

Ascella almost smiled. It was like he was asking her for advice of a sort. Guidance. He really didn't know how this would work and Ascella found comfort in his honesty.

"Well, I think," she started raising a wry eyebrow, "that as Harry's godfather - I think you should start by seeking to get him away from the Dursley's. Don't worry about me. I am good for now. But I would really like to get to know you. You could visit, you know?" She'd added the last not really expecting him to want to. It was more of a treacherous hope she felt growing and she was too overwhelmed by all that had happened to not voice it.

The smile that split his face then brought untold warmth both his face and to Ascella. In it she could see hints at the handsome man he'd once been, a man who'd been so full of life. She wanted to see that more. She wanted to get to know that man.

"'Course I'll visit. Be there so much Andy will be swatting me away with that cleaning broom of hers." Ascella paused for a moment - how could he know about that - but of course he knew, it was his cousin after all, and then threw her head back and laughed.

"She is quite good with that thing. I swear I still have the welt marks to prove it, when she used it to pester me to help around the cottage." If this was a premonition of what getting to know her father was going to be like then she couldn't wait. She wanted to ask more, about what Meda had been like growing up or what he and his friends used to get up to, but they had reached the end of the tunnel.

It was awkward once more as they all tried to shuffle themselves out of the tunnel and found themselves at the base of the stilled Whomping Willow.

"More like Whomp-less Willow, am I right?"

Ascella high-fived her father, who was the only one to laugh at her joke.

"Oh, she definitely gets her sense of humor from you, Padfoot," Lupin stated.

"What? I have a great sense of humor! Always have! That was a good one, Moony!"

And they might have all continued to laugh as they continued on up the grounds if at that moment the moon hadn't shown it self and Lupin's face paled. At first Ascella didn't understand everyone's concern - she the lone one of the group not moving as Lupin began to shift and her father screaming at them to run before turning into a dog. Even Harry used his wand to disarm Pettigrew before the bastard transformed and scurried away.

Ascella watched her father as a dog and the fully transformed werewolf fight and she just remained frozen - her brain trying to understand why Lupin was acting this way. He should be harmless. He was taking his potion. "Wolfsbane, a rather new invention, when brewed properly has the effect of preventing the mind of the witch of wizard infected with lycanthropy from being lost to the beast within during their monthly transformation." - excerpt from Damocles Belby's book on Wolfsbane. He'd been taking his potion - but then she remembered. Lupin had run out after them before Snape had been able to deliver the last one. It was then she fully comprehended what was going on - breaking out of her logic driven shock and ducking down out of the way and pulling her wand out.

It was a good thing she came to then too as not moments after she moved was the werewolf sprinting away into the forest passing exactly where she had been standing moments previous.

"Sirius, he's gone!" Harry yelled at the form of a collapsed dog - her father! "Pettigrew transformed!"

No! Ascella's knees buckled. She would have fallen if not for Hermione. The next moments were a blur of activity - her father sprinted away across the grounds in search of Pettigrew, then they checked on Ron until they felt the unmistakable chill of the dementors.

"Sirius!"

"Dad!"

Harry and Ascella screamed at the same time before sprinting down the lawn towards the lake to where Sirius was surrounded by at least a hundred dementors, Hermione right behind them.

Harry immediately tried conjuring a patronus to fend off the dementors but try as he might he couldn't. Asella attempted a couple times as well but it was all too much for her. She'd never been so empty, so cold. She felt the screams of her father in her memory begin to pierce her ears but she was somehow able to keep herself conscience enough to see one of the dementors draw it's hood back and lean over Harry. It couldn't be - not the kiss. Not on an innocent - not on her best friend. But she couldn't muster the strength to care. Just give in Harry, she thought. We are meaningless here in this world and this moment.

But then she remembered all the laughs they'd had and the sharing of their deepest secrets and she felt a last minute surge of strength within her at the good memories. She tried to raise her wand then and croaked out the incantation but nothing. There were more and more dementors and the wisps of her good memories were already being sucked away. All she could do was watch as her friend was drawn closer and closer to the demons mouth. Her friend was going to suffer a fate worse than death and she could do nothing about it. Instead she collapsed beside her father and saw no more.

"WHAT?"

Ascella started awake to the sound of her best friend screaming his fool head off.

"Wha - where am I?" she said, looking around and trying to make sense of her surroundings.

"Hospital Wing," Hermione, on the bed next to her, whispered. Ascella looked around again feeling her heart rate begin to calm. She was indeed in the Hospital Wing - the usual orderly white sheeted beds were there and Madame Pomfrey. What was less usual was the additional presence of the Minister of Magic and an awake Snape.

"WE'RE NOT CONFUNDED!" Harry continued to argue with the Minister and Snape. Ascella for the life of her couldn't figure out what was going on until she remembered.

"Dad," she breathed, looking around as if he might be in the bed next to her.

"Where is Sirius Black?" she shouted joining the fray. She felt her self growing more panicked, her voice edging on hysteria. "WHERE IS MY FATHER?"

The minister and Snape looked to her as did the others, but it was Harry who responded.

"They've got him locked up! They are going to let the dementors perform the kiss!" Ascella's heart beat stopped, then escalated rapidly. She felt herself go hot and she broke out in a sweat, her eyes unfocused and unseeing.

"NO! You can't! You've got the wrong man! My father is innocent! You can't! PLEASE! I can't lose him again!" She felt her throat rip at the words, her voice high and hysterical. She tried to get out of the bed but in her panic she couldn't get the sheets off, instead tangling them further around her sweat sticky legs. She ended up being pushed back down by Madame Pomfrey.

Fudge looked alarmed his gaze going between Snape and Pomfrey.

"Is she having a fit?" Fudge asked the nurse, wringing his hands together.

"It's a panic attack! No doubt due to all the ruckus you are causing! I told you all to stay out and away from my patients!" she screeched at the Minister and Snape. Then there was a cool hand at the back of Ascella's neck and a vial of liquid at her lips. "Here," Pomprey soothed. "Drink this. It will help."

Ascella blindly drank it, not thinking about what it could be. She'd only wanted to get the nurse out of her way as quickly as possible so she could get to her father - she had to get to him. Instead, she felt herself calming and growing unnaturally groggy as if she'd just had some sort of a calming drought mixed with a dose of a sleeping potion, which no - that's what it is, she thought catching sight of the bottle on her bedside as her head hit the pillow and for the second time in so many hours she was asleep not of her own will.

When she awoke again it was to pleasant summer sunlight spewing over her bed and the smiling face of her best friend. She smiled at him before she remembered. Tears were instantly in her eyes at the realization that her father was now a soulless husk of a human being. But before they could spill out Harry grabbed her hand and smiled hugely.

"He's fine," he said one hand going to smooth her hair and the other holding some chocolate. "We saved him. Here have some chocolate and Hermione and I will fill you in. She's just waking Ron."

And so they told their tale - with only a few interruptions from Ascella. Apparently, Dumbledore had shown up after they'd drugged Ascella and he'd implied he believed them and gave Hermione the idea of using her Time-Turner to go back in time and rescue not only her father but Buckbeak as well. While Ascella was rightfully upset that she had missed the opportunity to go back in time ("Bollocks! Harry got to go back in time! Harry!? 'Mione you promised if any of us did, it would be me!") she was more than grateful for what they'd done.

When Harry got to the part about saying good bye to her father on the astronomy tower, she fell silent and watched them intensely. Harry looked at her then and grabbed her hand.

"He wanted me to tell you - he's going to write. And he wanted you to know that just because he has to be on the run doesn't mean he won't keep his promise to get to know you."

Ascella bowed her head letting her hair cover her face as her eyes burned. She squeezed Harry's hand. He squeezed back. She didn't need to speak her thanks. Harry knew.

Later that day they were released from the Hospital Wing and while Ascella had stepped away to let her Ravenclaw friends know she was still alive Harry had left to go speak with Lupin. Hermione and Ron informed her that they'd just learned from Hagrid that the professor was leaving the school.

"Apparently Snape let it slip," Ron spat out viciously. "About him being a werewolf, I mean. Git."

Ascella quite agreed and might have stayed to commiserate more if she hadn't caught sight of the shabby professor making his way across the grounds towards the gate, battered trunk hovering in front of him.

She raced to catch up to him and did so sweaty and out of breath just shy of the exit to Hogsmeade.

Bent double and wheezing, hands on her knees she put out a hand to keep Lupin there as if worried he would disappear before she got to speak to him.

Finally, she raised her head to the beloved professor who looked both amused and a little bit concerned.

"You can't leave now!" she panted out. "I was planning on testing my version of Wolfsbane on you next term. It tastes excellent now! I just need to observe if it still helps - though I am sure it does," she arrogantly added. She was confident. Having successfully brewed the original potion as many times as she had as well as having had as many setbacks with her experimentations she was sure now that it was perfect.

Lupin's face was both proud and thankful but his eyes were colored with an edge of sadness.

"Ascella. I can't even begin to thank you for keeping my secret so long. And for not only keeping it and not treating me differently but for going the extra mile to use your advanced and incredible skills to better my struggle. A familial trait I believe - the desire to ease a friends pain."

Ascella met his eyes and realized what he was talking about. Her father and James had done a similar thing for Lupin when they accepted him and then went the extra step and became animagi to make his time as a wolf easier.

A wide smile split her face then.

"Yes, I suppose it is. And one I can honestly say now - I am proud to have inherited."

Lupin met her smile with one of his own.

"You have much of him in you. I can honestly say that now and know it means a great deal."

"Speaking of - I guess I know now why you always seemed to know so much about them - my parents I mean."

Lupin chuckled, shaking his head no doubt remembering their time while Ascella was in detention and all the times he'd slipped up, revealing too much about his familiarity with her parents.

"Yes. Between you and Harry - I was always dancing around those memories. How I wished I could have told you both so much more about them."

"You still could - just stay another year."

"No. It is time for me to leave." Ascella pouted and sagged in defeat. She hadn't really thought she could change his mind - she could see the determination to be away in his mind - but she had let herself hope.

"We will see each other again, Ascella. Don't worry." And with a quick one armed hug, he was gone.

Later, Ascella heard from Harry that Lupin had given him back the Marauder's Map - a treasure that meant so much more to both of them now that they knew the back story.

"Always knew he was a good one! Always have to watch the silent ones - they are the real trouble makers." Harry laughed and agreed with her, both imagining what kind of future trouble they could get into now.

The rest of term was spent in lazy days around the grounds, short swims in the lake and with a general sense of ease. It wasn't until the day they were all packed up and leaving the castle when Ascella found herself musing over the past year that she realized something.

"You know," she said to Harry while they waited in the crowd for an open carriage on the grounds outside the oak front doors."You know, what is a bit strange though, all that stuff in your tea cup in Divination from the start of the year and all those times you thought you saw the grim on the grounds and such."

"Yeah," Harry drew out, looking like he was trying to follow but also like he was struggling to find this topic interesting in the slightest.

"It wasn't the grim in the cup - or any of the other times. It was Sirius."

"What's your point?" Harry asked.

"Well the prediction may have been wrong. But it did happen."

"Yeah, but that's just you using hindsight to fill in the blanks. Like Lavender with her bunny."

"No, this is different. I'm not talking about the bologna Trelawny spouts off. I'm talking about the methods. The methods were right, we just didn't interpret them correctly. That's absolutely fascinating. Did you know, for instance, that predicting the future is one of magic's most least understood and unknown forms of magic?"

"Fascinating 'Cella," Harry said sounding as if it was anything but. But Ascella didn't comment on his lack of enthusiasm too lost was she in thinking about how maybe there was something to this whole seeing the future thing. Maybe Zabini wasn't crazed for taking it seriously and that she really did need to look more into this whole Unspeakable thing.

In the midst of her silent musings she missed her name being called out above the crowd. It was Harry that nudged her and drew her attention to it.

"Hmm?" she asked him. He nodded his head toward where a tall fifth year was making his way towards her. The crowd had significantly thinned out by this point but there were still enough left that they noticed the handsome prefect calling her name.

"Ascella," Cedric said upon reaching her. He looked down at her and touching her arm softly she was finding herself meeting his gaze and looking up into his warm gray eyes. She felt her heart skip a beat at his touch, one thought going through her head - how, just how, had she missed how very handsome Cedric Diggory was. The way he looked then, his chestnut hair falling gently into his warm gray eyes, that seemed to both absorb the warm light from the sun and reflect it at the same time. Nothing cold, creepy or weimaraner like about his eyes at all.

She was struck suddenly by the thought that maybe he'd been right a few weeks ago. Maybe she did need to give other boys a shot. Hadn't he said something about how he knew other boys liked her and that she might be surprised if she gave one of them a chance? Maybe, she should give a boy like Cedric Diggory a shot. But as quick as she was to have that thought she shook her head. That thought was utterly ridiculous and she couldn't believe she'd thought it. There was no way Cedric could like her - he wasn't talking about himself when he said that other boys liked her. No way.

Cedric cleared his throat, a grin tugging at his all too perfectly kissable lips. Ascella flushed. She hadn't even realized how long she'd been staring until she noticed Cedric's grin.

"What?" she asked abruptly, harsher than she meant it, trying to cover her embarrassment, even as her cheeks continued to betray her. She made a note to spend loads of time outside this summer so her tan would hide any flushing come fall.

Being the nice guy he was Cedric just laughed and said, "Have a happy holiday," before bending and kissing her swiftly on the cheek. And then he was lost to the crowd and a carriage with his mates, leaving Ascella with a stupid grin on her face.

"What was that about?" Harry asked coming up next to her, Hedwig tucked under his arm. He'd moved away once he'd seen Cedric come in her direction.

"No idea," she said dreamily, her hand going to her cheek, before she added, after a moment of thought. "Possibilities."

Harry gave her a look like she was crazy before she looped her arm through his and said, "Come along Potter, let's get to the train before we get left behind."

"You're cheerful."

"What's not to be cheerful about! We saved my father from the dementor's kiss, helped Buckbeak get away from beheading, you have bargaining over your aunt and uncle and I have a father again. The future is bright indeed!"

"Hey I hadn't thought about that! My aunt and uncle will be terrified when they learn Sirius is my godfather! They even know of him from the muggle news."

"There you go! We are at the close of another year and we've saved the day once more. What could possibly go wrong next year?"

A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddddddddddddd third year is finished! Onto the next! What'd you think? Predictions?