You'd think that the high of winning against Ravenclaw would be enough to keep Arlene's spirits high, but against all odds, she still managed to show up for breakfast looking like she got the dementor's kiss.

Flint called less practices now that they had won the last game as the next won won't be until the end of the term, still, schoolwork was piling up and Blaise could only do her homework for too long before he got tired, especially since he was doing Theo's as well.

To be quite honest, she didn't know what was happening, her detention was over –Snape begrudgingly agreed with Flint that she deserved a reward for pointing the snitch out and helping Draco win the game- and she dropped by the Hogwarts Weekly room way less.

Sage assured her not to worry, Lee helped her with the Quidditch section, Neville Longbottom, who, surprisingly, had a hidden passion for writing, helped her write articles and Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw Second Year and Draco's cousin (Her mum 'Pandora' was Lucius's sister, but as a pureblood, it was advised not to focus too much on blood relations) had a passion for abstract art and would help her with the drawings.

Alas, Arlene still felt like a horrid friend for not doing more, especially since she had no excuse for not helping, she didn't have an excuse for why she was falling behind or why she couldn't sleep at night.

Maybe it was because of how emotionally conflicted she felt, going from hating Sirius Black with every inch of her being to wondering if he was innocent, maybe it was because of all the theories that don't add up, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Crowley, how did Harry Potter do this every year?

To top it all off, Arlene's anti-Dementor lessons were not going nearly as well as she had hoped.

After several lessons, she was able to produce an indistinct, silvery shadow every time the Boggart-Dementor approached her, but her Patronus was too feeble to drive the Dementor away, all it did was hover, like a semitransparent cloud, draining Arlene of energy as she fought to keep it there.

Arlene felt angry with herself, she had always been an overachiever, she was fluent in French by the time she was eight and one of the earliest first years to learn sign language. Trying something new and not succeeding immediately was her equivalent of failing.

"You're expecting too much of yourself," said Professor Lupin, sternly in their fourth week of practice. "For a thirteen year old, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement, you aren't passing out anymore, are you?"

"I thought a Patronus would charge the Dementors down or something," said Harry dispiritedly, voicing what they had been both thinking "Make them disappear."

"The true Patronus does do that," said Lupin comfortingly "But you've achieved a great deal in a very short space of time, if the Dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you'll both be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground."

"You said it's harder if there are loads of them," said Arlene skeptically.

"I have complete confidence in you," said Lupin, smiling "Here, you've earned a drink, something from the Three Broomsticks, you won't have tried it before."

He pulled two bottles out of his briefcase.

"Butterbeer!" Exclaimed Harry without thinking, causing Arlene to mentally slap her forehead "Yeah, I like that stuff!"

Lupin raised an eyebrow.

"What he means," Arlene stepped in, glaring slightly at Harry "Is that Ron and Hermione bought us some back from Hogsmeade." She lied coolly without missing a beat.

"I see," said Lupin, though he still looked slightly suspicious "Well, let's drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I'm supposed to take sides, as a teacher." he added hastily.

They drank the butterbeer in silence, until Harry voiced something that should only be thought about at 5AM while in bed and unable to sleep.

"What's under a Dementor's hood?"

Professor Lupin lowered his bottle thoughtfully.

"Hmmm, well, the only people who really know are in no condition to tell us, you see, the Dementor lowers its hood only to use its last and worst weapon."

"What's that?"

"They call it the Dementor's Kiss," Arlene answered for Lupin "My mum's a lawyer, she's been there to Azkaban several times," she explained "It's what Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly, I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and suck out their soul."

Harry spat out a bit of butterbeer.

"What— they kill—?"

"Oh no," Lupin continued for her "Much worse than that, you can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working, but you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no anything, there's no chance at all of recovery, you'll just exist as an empty shell, your soul is gone, forever lost."

Lupin drank a little more butterbeer, then said, "It's the fate that awaits Sirius Black, it was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given the Dementors permission to perform it if they find him."

Harry sat stunned for a moment at the idea of someone having their soul sucked out through their mouth.

Arlene on the other hand, though about Sirius, if he was innocent, it would be a miscarriage of justice, and the real spy, the one who was responsible for the death of her father, would get away with it.

But if he wasn't...

"He deserves it," he said suddenly.

"You think so?" said Lupin lightly "Do you really think anyone deserves that?"

"Yes," said Harry defiantly. "For some things..."

Oh Arlene thought his parents.

She wondered if she should tell Harry that Sirius might be innocent but then decided against it, she had no proof other than the incident with her mum who could be bloody well helping him.

"See you later next week?" Lupin asked. Harry, who had been silent since his statement nodded and left.

"Actually, Professor, I have something I wanted to discuss with you." Arlene said "It's about Black."

Lupin froze, looking mildly surprised but sate back down anyway "What about him?"

Arlene copied his movement and sate down "You were friends with James Potter, and I know that Sirius was as well, is it possible that you knew him back then?"

She already knew the answer.

"Yes." He answered warily, as though she was luring him into a trap, which she kind of was.

"Well?" she asked "Well enough to—" she paused "To know if he really was guilty?"

Lupin looked taken back "Where is this coming from?"

"My mum thinks he's innocent," she confessed "she always told me he was dangerous but then at Christmas I had a Sneekoscope and it whistled when she said she didn't think he was and-"

"Arlene," Lupin interrupted gently "back at the time of the Order, we had spies in the midst of the Death Eaters, your dad was one of them." he paused "but there was also spies between us. I would have given my life up for each and every one of them, and I had no doubt they would all do the same for me. The fact that one of them might be a traitor was an impossible idea."

He took a large breath "When the war ended, I couldn't believe it, I was very close to Sirius, I struggled with his betrayal for a long time before I finally accepted it, and I was only a friend, he was your mother's brother in law, she entrusted the lives of her husband and child in his hand, I cannot begin to imagine how she must have felt."

He paused once more "I don't know if he's innocent or guilty, I believe he is, but if there is one thing I do know, it's that people believe what they want to believe."

She thought about Lupin's words for the rest of the day, people believed what they wanted to believe.

So what did she want to believe?

Her thoughtfulness did not go unnoticed, she sat in the Slytherin common room on the marble stairs near the entrance watching a first attempting to communicate with a Selkie, she thought about telling him that Selkie's and Sirens are, in no way, like mermaids and he should leave them alone if they ever passed by, but decided that it was a job for the prefects

Theo sat down next to her "You look like one of those memes when a person has equations written over their images."

Arlene chuckled softly "I've been thinking."

Theo hummed "I've been thinking too." He told her, but didn't elaborate.

It was something she liked about Theo, when he knew you were upset, he didn't push you to talk, he just sat with you until you snapped out of your mood.

But sometimes he needed some pushing.

"Theo," she started "What happened at Christmas?"

Theo to her and stared for a few seconds, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell her.

"My dad took us out for dinner on Christmas," he finally said, turning back to the Slekie who was now barring her pointy teeth at the young boy "it was the most normal thing we'd done since mum... you know."

The committed suicide and left me in the care of that monster went unsaid.

"He was talking about stuff in the Ministry that I couldn't care less about, but I was just so happy that we were being normal for once, you know?" he paused "anyway, there were these two men dining together and dad saw them and he told me this story when he was a Death Eater and there was this muggle couple-"

"Oh Theo." Arlene said softly, pulling him into a hug, his dad didn't know about him being bi, but if he did, Arlene guessed that Mr. Nott wouldn't be a great ally.

"It's okay, I was used to him making comments like that, it's just that- he told me that he left Hogwarts after fifth year to become a death eater and said that if I had any luck, I would do the same."

Arlene nodded "I know, Theo it's very hard to think your parent would do something so horrible."

Theo shook "It's not that, Ari, it's just that the way he said it, he was so certain, like there would be Death Eaters again."

"All supremacists believe that their time will come again, Theo." She told him, confused.

"It wasn't like that, it was like he knew something, and it got me thinking, Voldemort was smart, evil, but smart, he couldn't be killed like normal people."

He stopped for a few seconds "Hagrid once said that there wasn't enough human in him left to die. What if that were true? He must have had some sort of backup plan."

Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

Theo leaned back and lied on the floor, looking up at the passing fish "There are plenty of Death Eaters still out there, they could help him rise again." He broke the silence.

"Voldemort is dead, Theo." Arlene protested.

"Is he?" he sat back up again "you don't know what happened that night in Godric's Hallow, neither do I and neither does anyone. The entire house was destroyed, Arlene! You think a baby could have done that? We never found a body, maybe it wasn't just Harry and his parents who were there that night, maybe Voldemort is still out there, maybe, who knows? I do know that one of the people in his inner circle knows that he's coming back."

Arlene remembered Lupin's words 'people believe what they want to believe'.

"He's gone, Theo." She told him softly "You're just being paranoid."

He turned to her "Am I?"

—
Au: Please note that I don't read the chapter before I publish it in order to keep up with the tight schedule of NaNoWriMo, so if there are any spelling/ grammar mistakes, point them out.