"Tell us about them, Ivory," said James, looking the girl straight in the eyes. "Really, it's okay if you don't want to, but I reckon it'll be good to talk."

Ivory took a deep, constricted breath in and met James's gaze. The bespectacled boy grabbed Ivory's hand fleetingly in an effort to comfort her; no one did comfort like James. The gesture was much appreciated on Ivory's part and she sighed, prepared to talk about her parents. The atmosphere of the Three Broomsticks Inn made it oddly easy for her to talk as it was too loud for the silence to be able to seep through her bones and make her feel lonelier than ever.

"My parents are both Muggle-borns," Ivory began, looking anywhere but at the four boys. She stared off somewhere in the distance, keeping her eyes focused on another table or on a chair, or even on the empty bottles of Firewhisky. "That's the reason they were both k-killed, anyway... They're both Muggle-born. Neither of my parents were in Gryffindor, though. My dad was in Hufflepuff and my mum was in Ravenclaw. They both work at the Ministry of Magic.

"Dad is one of those people who just makes the corniest jokes that people laugh at anyway... especially me. I always laugh at his jokes, even when no one else gets them. We have the same sense of humour. He's awkward, too, but it's a funny type of awkward, and that side of him always makes me smile... He's always been way too protective of me, and I tell him that I don't need to be protected. He knows I can take care of myself, but he'd still murder anyone who hurt me. Well, both my parents would do that.

"And Mum never misses an opportunity to tease me, but I love that about our relationship. We tell each other everything... and I really mean everything. I write to her at least once every single week and I never miss a week. She's my b-best friend. She was the one that I had so much difficulty leaving when I first came to Hogwarts... The thought of not seeing her for a few months until Christmas or the summer hurt me so much that I almost didn't even want to come here. She wanted me to, though, because she thought I was way too dependent on her.

"They do everything for me... Both of them."

She swallowed the lump in her throat, realizing that she had used the present tense to describe her parents... But they were no more... They were gone and they weren't coming back.

Ivory cleared her throat and sniffled. "I mean... they did everything for me. Did."

She licked her dry and cracked lips, rubbed her raw cheeks with the backs of her hands. She remembered specifically something her mother had once told her.

"Mum once told me that she knew I loved her too much. I didn't understand it at first and I thought there was no such thing as loving someone too much. I thought about what a wonderful thing it was for someone to know how much you loved them without you having to tell them... but she said that she feared if... if anything ever h-h-happened to her, that I'd die of a b-b-b-broken h-heart... And m-maybe I will."

"God, Ivory, no," said Remus, not able to hold himself back from saying it.

Remus hated every time the girl mentioned that she didn't want to live anymore. He wanted to shield her from everything, he wanted to make everything better for her. The image of the Ivory he used to know was flickering before him. Impulsively, he reached his hand forward and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. His hand lingered there and his breath momentarily hitched in his throat as her watery hazel eyes met his.

Remus dropped his hand from her face, blushing slightly. He hated how he blushed so easily, for the slightest thing...

Ivory gave a little grimace. She wanted to keep talking and Remus, James, Sirius and Peter were clinging onto every word that came out of her mouth. She lowered her head, pulling on the sleeve of Remus's jumper. His scent on it, for some reason, calmed her.

"When my grandmother died... when my mum lost her own mother... she told me that everyone reacted differently to death," she said softly. "I was really young when it happened, so I never remembered much, especially from the funeral. My mum said that at my grandmother's funeral... she couldn't cry. She just felt numb all over, because it was all surreal and she had been brought up in the Muggle world, where death was a harsh shock that was normally associated with old age." Her eyes darkened and she set both of her hands on the table, clenching them tightly together. "But in our world, we're always on edge, waiting for... waiting for that bastard that calls himself Lord Voldemort to come and get us."

Peter was the only one to flinch upon hearing Ivory mention the name, though the others looked quite shocked at hearing it from her as well.

But everything Ivory was saying was true, because they all knew that in the end, the darkness would take over, rolling over all of them like a thick fog. They'd succumb to the darkness of the rest of the world, because last week Ivory had been so alive and now she was an absolute mess. It was a reminder of how fast the world could crumble, how fast the evil could drive away the good, how fast a person could fall.

"Mum felt guilty a lot. Once her parents were gone, she'd feel bad about the fact that she didn't think about them constantly... And one day, she woke up and confessed how guilty she was that she almost couldn't... s-see their f-faces anymore... She couldn't imagine what they looked like, could barely even remember the way they used to smile or frown... I wonder how long it'll be before my parents' faces are mere memories that are drifting away in my mind..."

She would never feel her father's hug or her mother's kiss, never feel the embrace of a parent or hear the words of comfort during dark times. But the only people that could make the worst things in the world even remotely better were the only ones able to bring such pain to Ivory.

Sometimes, she had thought that her life was perfect compared to the lives of others. She had great parents and though they had been her only living relatives, she'd always been quite content with the life she'd had. Despite the fact that she wanted a sibling, she had dealt with the fact that she didn't have one and had come to realize that her life was as near perfect as could be. She'd been so grateful for her life. But apparently she couldn't have that anymore. It was too good.

"Would you like to leave?" Sirius asked her, bringing her back to the present.

"The Three Broomsticks or Hogsmeade?" Ivory questioned him.

"Neither," he replied. "I meant... would you like to leave... us?" he asked hesitantly. Sirius wasn't sure what she wanted. Perhaps she just wanted to be alone for the time being.

"No," she said immediately. "No... I mean, if it's all right with you, I'd like to stay with you guys."

"We can go anywhere," James told her. "Anywhere in Hogsmeade. Anywhere in the castle. Heck, we can go get lost in the Forbidden Forest if you'd li—hey, I was kidding!" he said quickly as Remus looked at him pointedly.

Remus stepped in, looking directly at Ivory. "Really... Choose a place and we'll go there."

"I don't care where we go," said Ivory, hugging her arms around herself as she stood up from her chair. "Just... just stay with me. Please. I just... want to forget about..."

They understood what she was getting at and walked out of the Three Broomsticks with her.

Sirius pulled out his wand and began casting a silent spell, gathering up brown and red and yellow and orange leaves from the ground, putting them into a very, very large pile. The pile became so large that it was as though Sirius had gathered all of the fallen leaves in the entirety of Hogsmeade. It had grown taller than even some of the small cottages in the village.

"What are you doing?" Ivory asked him even though she had an idea; he turned around and smirked at her without saying anything.

Suddenly, Peter ran forward and jumped into the leaves. James followed him and the two boys acted as if they were five years old again, but they didn't care because it was fun and they loved nothing more than having fun.

"Who wouldn't love jumping into a pile of leaves bigger than Hogwarts?" Sirius asked before jumping in as well.

Ivory turned to Remus.

He, however, spoke first.

"I'm sorry. They're idiots, I can't really do anything about that," he said sheepishly.

"Remus, you have the most immature, childish friends ever," she laughed. "But don't apologize. It is a gift to be able to be that carefree."

"Trust me, I sometimes wish I was as well," he mumbled.

Ivory knew about his condition, which was why she understood why he'd said that. She tried to force a small smile. She wasn't the only person in the world to feel pain, and the boy in front of her had suffered his share as much as she had.

"So do I," she said. "But who says we can't be?"

"Hm?" He looked at her inquisitively.

She bit her lip, trying to hold back her smile, before shoving him into the pile of leaves and jumping in as well.