[A/N] SUCCESS! AN UPDATE THAT DIDN'T TAKE NINE MONTHS! HUZZAH! Again, I'm uploading this without really editing it, as I'm less interested in grammar and more in content at the moment. Please enjoy! Hopefully the next update will be nearly as expedient as this one! :] - Kate

3. Realizations

By the third week, Aria had more or less mastered her role in this time. Most notably, she no longer accidentally referred to Professor McGonagall as Headmistress, which Aria took as a sign that she was truly becoming a part of her new life. Additionally, she had now been at the castle long enough that Remus or Sirius one didn't insist on going everywhere with her to make sure she knew the way.

On the third Monday, Aria took her now-usual spot beside Remus and across from Sirius at breakfast. Peter had not come down yet, and James looked decidedly perturbed, stabbing at the sausage on his plate but not eating any of it. Sirius and Remus were ignoring their morose friend, wrapping up a rather animated conversation as Aria joined them.

"Good morning," Aria greeted them, earning a smile from Remus and Sirius and no response from James. "Alright, James?" she asked, reaching for a piece of toast.

James grumbled under his breath but didn't look up, and Sirius chuckled. "Oh, you know Prongs," he said. "It's always one Evans drama or another, isn't it?"

Remus smiled sympathetically at his friend. "Lily must have been in a bad mood this morning," he explained. "James bid her good morning and she, er, sort of started screaming at him. I can't really remember the details," he said vaguely, scratching the back of his neck.

Sirius laughed. "I can, mate, she went on about – OW, Moony, that hurt!" he shouted, reaching down to rub his knee. Remus glanced pointedly at James, giving Sirius a silent, 'You prat, you'll only make it worse,' glare. Sirius took the hint and finished quietly, looking at his plate. "She went on about him, er, being an immature prat who will, uh, never change. Or something like that. And then she sort of stormed out."

Aria gave a little grimace, as she knew that Lily could be unpleasant when she was angry. "Well," she said awkwardly, "I'm sure she'll come around. You know, eventually."

The group silently picked at their breakfasts for a time, until Sirius jolted up, looking as though he'd just had a brilliant idea.

"Oy, Aria," he said, "you're a girl!"

Remus nearly choked on his juice before descending into a fit of laughter. Aria rolled her eyes with a grin, and even James had to smile.

"Yes, well done, Sirius. Took you this long do notice, did it?" she teased.

"Yeah – well, no – but I just thought… Well, you're a girl, so you can help James understand how to get Lily to like him!" James looked up hopefully, and Remus seemed interested, but skeptical.

Aria was apprehensive, thinking of things she knew and the others did not. "Look, I'm not sure I'm the best person to help you with that. I don't even really know Lily that well, nor James…"

"Yes, but your insight would still be helpful," Sirius insisted. "We've been trying to figure it out for years, but we're all blokes, so we really haven't got a clue!"

"Yeah, please, Aria?" James asked. "Regardless of how helpful you feel you'll be, it would be nice to have a female perspective on the matter," he said.

Aria looked at Remus pleadingly, hoping he could somehow get her out of this, but he just shrugged. She sighed, pondering. The first thought she had was of the glance Lily had taken at James at breakfast the first day. Come to think, Aria was fairly certain she had seen several such glances, both at meals and in classes. They couldn't be considered fond, but nor were they glares.

"I think..." she started, locking eyes with James. "I believe she's interested." James' eyes brightened. "But," she said quickly, "she's serious about your, er, low maturity level. If you really want her to consider dating you, I think you just need to calm down. Play less pranks, hex less people, be less disruptive, and – this above all – stop badgering her. It isn't pleasant to have someone constantly in your face, that's annoying, and girls generally don't care to date annoying boys. So there it is," she finished. "Calm down and back off."

The boys all sat silently for a moment, taking it in. Aria fidgeted nervously, wondering if they thought she was being useful or just crazy.

"Well, that's basically what I've been saying for years, isn't it?" Remus said dryly, looking at James.

James nodded. "Yes, but never before has it made so much sense," he said earnestly. "So really all I have to do is calm down, and Lily will like me?" he asked Aria eagerly.

"Er, well I'm not guaranteeing anything here," she said cautiously. "It's just advice…"

James shrugged, grinning. "Well, it's better than nothing, I suppose."

Just then, a rush of owls flew into the Great Hall to deliver the morning mail. Aria liked to watch them fly past, knowing she would not get any mail. James received a large care package from his parents, and fondly stroked the tawny owl that delivered it before the bird flew away again.

An owl near the end of the wave landed in front of Sirius with a package that was a bit smaller than James'. Sirius groaned. "No, Orpha, this isn't mine," he snapped, but the owl simply gave a small hoot and flew away. "Stupid bloody bird," he growled, standing up and yanking the package off the table.

Aria watched him march down the row to the next table over. He set the package down – gingerly, Aria noticed, which surprised her due to his perceived level of frustration – in front of a tall, thin, black-haired boy that looked rather like him. They calmly exchanged a few words, and then Sirius turned around and walked back.

Instead of sitting, he picked up his bag. "James," he said, jerking his head towards the door. James nodded, grabbing his own bag and getting up. "Aria, I'll meet you in the Common Room in a bit," he said, rather gruffly. The two walked out without another word.

Aria looked quizzically at Remus. "That's Regulus," he explained, "Sirius' brother. He's a year below us. The Black family owl still gets them confused sometimes."

"Oh," Aria replied softly, pondering the exchange. "He acted rather strangely about it, don't you think?"

Remus shrugged. "Regulus is sort of the golden child, while Sirius is the black sheep, so they've always had a rivalry, but it's more complicated than that. Sirius and his brother… They have a lot of animosity towards one another, but there's also a layer of affection… Neither of them believes the other is past saving."

Aria still wasn't really sure what he meant, so she waited for him to continue. Remus sighed. "Sirius' family is one that thinks being Pureblood is more important than anything. Is that as big a deal in America?"

"Er…" Aria said, her mind blank. "Yes. A bit."

"Well Regulus shares their views, whilst Sirius does not. But Sirius still feels that Regulus might come around and realize that he's being a prick, and that Pureblood mania is a farce. And Regulus still has hope that Sirius will renounce his blood traitor ways and rejoin the family. When they must interact, they do so cordially, as you just witnessed, but it always puts Sirius in a terrible mood."

Aria nodded, beginning to understand. She nibbled at the hot cakes on her plate as Peter slid in beside Remus, looking rather haggard.

"Overslept," he grumbled as an explanation, piling his plate with food.

Twenty minutes later, Aria arrived in the Common Room to meet up with Sirius. He was sitting in the comfy armchair by the fire, still looking decidedly irritated. He glanced up as she entered.

"So," he said, his voice rough, "how do you feel about skiving off the whole day today? I thought I could take you down to Hogsmeade."

Aria considered this apprehensively. "I don't know about that, Sirius," she said. "It's only the third week of school; isn't it a little early to be ditching?"

He shrugged. "I just don't think I want to be in the castle today."

"Well then let's go out to the grounds," she suggested. "You can show me that tree you pointed out weeks ago, and we can sit. And if you still want to go to Hogsmeade when it's time for Transfiguration, we can reconsider. Alright?" She smiled and grabbed his wrist, pulling him out of the chair.

Sirius gave a grunt of consent, allowing himself to be pulled out of Gryffindor Tower.

It was a very lovely day out. The weather was still warm, with the only hint of chill in the occasional light breeze. The dew from the morning was just disappearing from the tips of the grass, and the first of the leaves were turning for autumn. Aria still had Sirius by the wrist, making a beeline for the tree he had pointed out from the Astronomy Tower.

"This is the one, right?" she asked brightly as they reached it. Sirius humored her with a shadow of a smile and conjured a blanket for them to sit on.

"Aye, you found it," he said, collapsing onto the blanket. Aria sat lightly next to him. "We should have stopped by the kitchens for a snack," he commented.

"We only just came from breakfast," she pointed out with a smile. "But it is nice weather for a picnic. Maybe we should come out here for lunch!" she suggested.

Sirius shrugged. "If we aren't in Hogsmeade," he added.

Aria shrugged. "Yes, well. We'll see, won't we?"

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Aria took the opportunity to lie down, stretching out on the soft scarlet blanket and basking in the sun.

Sirius sighed. "I suppose Remus would have told you something about Regulus?"

Aria nodded. She opened her eyes to look at Sirius, but he wasn't facing her. "He said Regulus adheres to your parents' twisted viewpoints, and that you and your brother aren't friendly… but that you don't really hate each other, either. And he said interacting with him always puts you in a terrible mood," she added at the end, with a soft, knowing smile. She closed her eyes again and waited for him to respond. Aria knew it would be best from him to talk himself through it, and that she would be the most helpful just for listening.

"That more or less covers it," he said with a nod. "Reg just doesn't understand what this means, he's always been a bit of a dolt. He's stupid enough to believe that our mum and dad are in the right. It's their fault for treating him like the sun shines out his bum, really. Ever since we were children, they knew that Regulus was the perfect one and I was the disappointment," he said bitterly. Now that he'd gotten himself talking, he realized how much he needed to say all of this. "They coddled him and doted on him and left me well alone. Bugger me how they figured out that I wasn't like them so quickly… As a kid I remember trying everything to appease them, to get them to look at me like they looked at Reg.

"Whatever they suspected bloody well cemented itself when I came here. Of course the first friend I made was a Potter, and then I was put in Gryffindor…. They didn't like that much; they wrote dozens of letters to the school, demanding I be Sorted again. Then the next year, Reg came along and is put directly in Slytherin, and from then it was like I didn't even exist. It all just went to his head, of course, and he became more of a pompous ass than he was before… We had these nameplates on the doors of our rooms, see, that just said 'Sirius' and 'Regulus', but suddenly that wasn't even good enough for him. He insisted that he get one with his full name on it. Regulus Arcturus Black," he scoffed.

Aria jolted upright, her eyes open wide. "R.A.B.," she muttered to herself.

"What's that?" Sirius asked. "Are you alright?"

Aria was trying to calm down, but her heart rate had nearly doubled. She slowed her breathing to keep from hyperventilating. Everything she knew about the Second Wizarding War was now swirling around in her brain, everything she'd read in the post-Battle at Hogwarts articles, and the things that Rowan had filled in for her, about R.A.B. and the Horcruxes and Severus Snape and all the deaths and Peter Pettigrew's betrayal. Everything was clicking into place: where she was, who these people are, the role they all played in the future…

"Aria, can you hear me?" Sirius asked, growing more concerned by the second. Aria was sitting, frozen, breathing slowly and deeply and looking straight ahead. He glanced around to see if he thought anyone had cursed her, but there was no one outside but themselves. "Aria?"

Aria shook her head to snap herself out of it and turned to Sirius, trying to smile. "Sorry about that," she said, standing up. She mentally jumped on the first excuse that came to mind. "I just, uh, remembered, that I forgot to do a bit of, um, Transfiguration work. Can we go back to the dormitories? Would you mind? I, uh, really need to finish it before class."

"Er, sure," he said, standing up and vanishing the blanket he had conjured. Aria was already hurrying toward the castle. Sirius almost had to jog to keep up with her.

Sirius grabbed her shoulder when they reached the Common Room to keep her from disappearing up the stairs. She was still wide-eyed and stiff, her mind reeling.

"Are you sure you're alright, Aria? It isn't that I… I didn't freak you out or anything, right? With everything about my family?" He didn't quite meet her eye, as if he was afraid of what her reply would be.

Aria broke out of her stupor immediately and grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "Of course not! This has nothing to do with that, Sirius." She gave his hand a squeeze to show that she was sincere. "I'll always be here for you to talk to, about anything," she promised. "Right now I just have to, uh, finish my, uh, Charms homework. Really."

He smiled. "Okay. Thank you, Aria," he said, pulling her in for a hug. "Go finish your work. And hurry," he said, checking his watch. "Class starts in twenty minutes."

She nodded and bounded up the stairs to the Girls' Dormitory, leaving a belatedly puzzled Sirius downstairs to question whether she had Transfiguration work or Charms work to do.

Aria managed to get through the rest of the day's classes in a satisfactorily normal state. She was rather stiffer than usual, and Sirius and Remus noticed that she was zoning out far more than they were accustomed to, each having to repeat questions on multiple occasions, but overall she made it through. Her head hadn't stopped swimming since Sirius had said Regulus' full name.

Aria had been in her third year at Hogwarts when the final battle of the Second Wizarding War took place. Rowan hadn't wanted her to go back, but he knew that it was the safest place for her. She remembered Professor McGonagall coming to the dormitories to give all the Gryffindors instructions. All wizards and witches who had come of age were welcome to participate in the fighting, if they so chose, but under no circumstances were the younger students to see any action. She put Prefects in charge of getting the younger students out safely through a passageway to the Hog's Head that some of the older students had found out of a room in the castle that was unfamiliar to most everyone.

However, most of the Gryffindor students – Aria among them – had refused to leave, wishing to help, so McGonagall gave each of them assignments; some were lookouts from the tall towers and sent word to the professors of any movements on the grounds, and some sent messages from the Owlery to anyone who could provide help or backup. Aria was among students in the Infirmary, helping the Sixth and Seventh Years that were studying to become Healers tend to anyone they could. It was all very vivid in Aria's memory.

In the aftermath, she had, of course, read all the post-war literature on the defeat of Voldemort, but most of her knowledge came from her brother, who graduated in the same year as and kept in touch with both Charlie Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks. The Daily Prophet told you, for instance, that Severus Snape had been Dumbledore's man all along, but not that he protected Harry Potter for love of his mother, Lily Evans, and none of the articles or books mentioned Voldemort's six Horcruxes, or even the idea of Horcruxes, but Aria had heard it all.

She was going through every detail in her head again and again, trying to piece together the fates of all these people she was getting to know. She could now hardly keep from shuddering every time she saw Peter, thinking of the epic betrayal that killed James and Lily and landed Sirius in Azkaban. She also kept glancing over to the Slytherin table at dinner, comparing the scrawny, greasy-haired Severus Snape to the utterly cold human being she had known in the future, as her Potions professor in First Year, her Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in Second Year, and her Headmaster in Third Year. Could he really be the same man that she knew, who made – would make? – the greatest possible sacrifice, all for love of the redheaded girl Aria was two seats down from?

It was so surreal. All these people she was becoming friends with were growing up to die. Did she share their fate, now that her life was intertwined with theirs?

She struggled to keep acting normal through the rest of the week, which proved difficult, as her mind was still wandering, and she nearly jumped out of her skin whenever someone surprised her. She left meals as soon as she could to avoid being around Peter, saying that she had to do some research in the library for Ancient Runes.

By the time Friday rolled around, she was completely frazzled from thinking and overthinking and rethinking and dreaming about everything she knew happened between the years 1976 and 2000.

Aria didn't wake up until lunchtime on Friday. When she went to the Great Hall, Remus was the only Marauder at the table so far. She sat down next to him, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Hello, Aria," he said pleasantly, although he looked as sleepy as she was. "How are you today?"

"Exhausted," she replied, yawning to demonstrate. "It's been a strange week for me."

Remus chuckled. "You have been acting slightly odd. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

Aria shook her head. "It's nothing, really. I've just been thinking about, uh, my past a lot lately. You know, my old life. It's just been getting to me."

Remus put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard. But for what it's worth, I'm glad to have you here."

Aria smiled. "Thank you, Remus. That means a lot."

Sirius slid in across from Aria. "Peter and James are right behind me," he said, shoveling food onto his plate. "Prongs seems really excited about something."

Aria contemplated 'going to the library' again, but her stomach grumbled, which put an end to that. She started putting food on her own plate.

In another moment, James and Peter appeared, but didn't take their seats. Both boys were wearing mischievous grins, and James had a lovely, silvery cloak draped over his arm.

"As it's the weekend," James announced grandly, "Wormtail and I thought it would be a nice opportunity to procure some sweets from the village."

Aria smiled. "Honeydukes?"

James looked down at her, a completely puzzled look on his face. "How did you know that?"

Aria's eyes widened. Of course she shouldn't know of Honeydukes, she used to go to Salem. Salem. "Oh. Lily, uh, told me about some of the shops in Hogsmeade. Honeydukes, and The Three Broomsticks, and, uh, Scrivenshaft's."

James' eyes remained narrow, but he nodded. "Yes. Well. Who's up for an excursion?" His mischievous grin returned. Sirius and Remus both glanced at Aria. James scratched the back of his neck. "You're, er, welcome to come, of course, Aria."

She smiled, appreciating his invitation, however forced it may have sounded. "No, that's alright. Just bring me back a couple of Chocolate Frogs, if you wouldn't mind."

James smiled, clearly relieved that she had declined, and looked back at the boys.

Remus looked apologetic. "Not this weekend, mate. I haven't been feeling very well, I'd just be a downer," he said. "I'll be glad to go weekend after next, though." No one acknowledged the weekend he skipped.

James frowned, pouting slightly. "That's a scheduled Hogsmeade weekend, that's no fun at all. We'll go another time with you, though, Moony. Padfoot?"

Sirius eyed the cloak James was holding apprehensively. "Look, Prongs," he said, "you know three of us can't fit under the cloak. We're not Third Years anymore."

James glared at his friend. "Oh, come off it. If we all three crouch a bit, we should be fine. And we won't need it except to get into the passageway and out of the basement, it'll be fine."

"Not today, mate. Just go and pick stuff up, and we'll have a right party when you get back, aye? Get some butterbeer as well as sweets, it'll be grand."

James was still not happy with the arrangement, but he nodded. "Whatever you say, killjoy. Come on, Wormtail." He and Peter exited the Great Hall, and Aria let out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

"He didn't seem particularly happy about that," Aria noted. Sirius and Remus shrugged simultaneously.

"He'll get over it," Sirius said confidently. "So, what are the three of us going to do today?"

Soon, they were outside under the tree Sirius and Aria had sat by earlier that week. Sirius had conjured another blanket, and the three were playing Exploding Snap. Remus and Sirius seemed to get particular enjoyment out of the little shriek Aria gave whenever a card exploded, and after only a few rounds they had descended into fits of laughter that rendered them incapable of playing anymore.

Sirius was the first to regain his composure. He grinned broadly at Aria. "It's nice to see you back to normal," he said. "You've been acting strangely all week."

Aria shrugged, and repeated the excuse she had given to Remus.

"Well, you know that if there's anything you want to talk about, we're both here to listen," he insisted. She looked into Sirius' black eyes, and then Remus' blue ones. She pictured Sirius as she had seen him when she was a girl, on wanted posters after he had escaped from Azkaban, and she felt a sort of fire build within her, thinking of Peter.

She took a deep breath, knowing that there was no way to properly explain it to them, but desperately wanting their guidance. "Can I tell you two something crazy? Without you thinking I've gone completely mental?"

Both boys nodded. "We promise not to think you've gone mental," Remus affirmed, looking at her curiously.

"What if I told you that I knew something about the future?" she asked. "That I, uh, had a sort of, um, vision?"

"Well that's common enough," Sirius said. "Still rare, of course, but nothing mental." Remus nodded his agreement.

"Yes, right. Well, So I've had this, uh, vision, and there's this one person in particular that does something terrible. And I know what's going to happen, what he's going to do, and I'm just sitting here, watching him walk around like he's innocent," Aria said.

Sirius blinked. "If it bothers you that much, do something about it."

Aria considered this, a gleam in her eye.