Chapter 6
━━━━━━━━ ✥ ━━━━━━━━

"WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?" SHE MUMBLED. "Sticking his nose into things that aren't his business. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Adhara stumbled over her feet, trying to walk as fast as she could. Hermione and she had to take the longer route to Arithmancy; Professor Lupin was in the corridor they usually took to reach the classroom, and Adhara was hellbent on avoiding the man.

He's been acting strange ever since the boggart lesson: keeping a closer eye on her, asking her friends and her about their day. He wasn't the only one who was keeping an annoyingly close watch of her, other professors started doing the same, ever since that article was released. Ever since her beloved uncle escaped.

It was all very unnecessary. Whether the attention came from worry about the nature of her boggart or simply because of her last name didn't matter to her. Either way, Adhara did not enjoy it once bit. She liked it better when adults left her alone.

Next to her, Hermione shook her head.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just thinking how Harry and you are two different sides of the same coin."

"What's that supposed to mean."

"This situation," she gestured between them, "reminds me of a conversation I had with him back in first year."

"What conversation?"

"Oh, it's not that important. But," she stopped, looking directly at Adhara, "I did tell him this: we look after him not because we think he is helpless, but because we care about him and want to help him."

Adhara shifted uncomfortably in her spot.

"The same thing applies to you, Adhara Black. So let us look after you."

"I don't need you to do that."

"I never said you needed it. I'm doing it cause I want to. And you can't stop me."

Adhara made a grumbling sound. Even if that was the teacher's actual motive, she did not welcome it.

"Professor Lupin isn't trying to help me. He's keeping an eye on me."

"Why would he do that?"

Taking in a deep breath, Adhara started to explain to the girl about Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and James Potter.

"They were all friends?"

"Yes."

"How do you know that?"

"My father mentioned them in his letters a few times. So yes, Lupin is only keeping an eye on me because I'm Sirius Black's niece, and he doesn't want what happened to James Potter to happen to Harry too."

Hermione looked skeptical. She arched a brow and brought her thumbnail between her teeth.

"Are you sure?"

"What other reasons would he have?"

━━━━

Draco Malfoy was a piece of utter shit. It was the perfect way to describe him. A piece of shit: it encompassed everything he was all in one. A prat, a git, spoiled, inbred. You name it.

It really was the perfect description.

He was so annoying, such a pompous little shit, that whichever room he was in, no matter who else was occupying that same room, Malfoy managed to bring all attention to him. He took up that much space.

Harry couldn't help but pay attention to him either.

In fact, he spent most of last year following around the blond, trying to catch him in the act or find some sort of proof about his involvement with the Chamber of Secrets.

Malfoy may have not been the heir in the end, but it didn't change the fact that Harry hated his guts.

For a second, however, this hate towards the Slytherin evaded him. When Harry saw Voldemort emerge from the cupboard during that Defence lesson, he froze. All of his senses ceased working along with him, even his thoughts. And then when, a flash of blond ran past him and out the door, Harry followed without thinking.

He wasn't thinking about all of Malfoy's taunts, his jeers, his insults. Harry was only thinking about catching him. He thought, maybe, Malfoy was in a situation similar to himself: one that he had no control over and therefore had no choice but to suffer the consequences.

Harry had just wanted to help.

And just when he was starting to believe Malfoy was, perhaps, not so bad, he pulled a stunt like this.

━━━━

The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures wanted to put Buckbeak down. Apparently, it was too risky to keep such an animal near students. Who was going to tell them that hippogriffs were part of the third-year curriculum, thus they had to study one?

Harry stabbed his fork into his potatoes with more force, starring daggers at Malfoy who was flaunting his injured arm to anyone willing to listen. Harry saw the blood. He believed the boy actually did hurt himself, but he also knew Malfoy was blowing it out of proportion.

He saw how well Madam Pomfrey treated Adhara's diffindo gash, a hippogriff's cut couldn't be any trouble at all, in comparison.

Next to him, Ron was also glowering. "Look at the prat," he was stabbing his lunch more forcefully than Harry. "How long do you think he'll milk that performance?"

Millicent, who was on Harry's other side, glared at her housemate. "One swing, and I can make that performance of his quite real."

Ron snorted, reaching over Harry's head to fist pump the Slytherin girl.

Hermione and Adhara were nowhere in sight, so Harry was properly surprised when he found Millie sitting by herself at the Gryffindor table, glaring down at anyone who even looked at her funny. She normally didn't join the Lions if Hermione wasn't there.

Harry couldn't believe it. Malfoy really was going out of his way to punish Hagrid. He really didn't have any reason to do this other than the fact that he was a complete and utter piece of shit. He watched as another boy, a black boy with an impassive face, nodded along to everything Malfoy spat out, who, in return, spoke more animatedly.

Harry stabbed his fork more harshly.

"We need to do something about this," he said, making the other two look at him.

"What?"

"About Buckbeak! We can't let Malfoy win, it'll just give him an excuse to act more like a ponce!"

"Mate, I hate to break it to you, but Malfoy will always be a ponce, no matter what the outcome of the trial is."

"Pretty sure Mione'll be willing," declared Millicent. "Bring it up when she gets here, and she'll already be gathering signatures, without a doubt."

Harry didn't look too sure about that. Perfect, rule-follower, Hermione? Miss 'or-worst-expelled'? Ron looked as incredulous as he did.

"Are we talking about the same Hermione, here?" asked Ron. "The same one who says I deserve my detentions for breaking the rules?"

Millicent licked her spoon clean, before countering back, without even bothering to look at the redhead. "Yes, that's right. The same Hermione who went down the trap door with you in first year, the same one who illegally brewed a polyjuice potion for you two in second year and ended up at the hospital wing for weeks afterwards." She finally turned towards him. "Yes, Weasley, I am talking about that same Hermione."

Ron's mouth snapped shut, Millie's words making Harry and him both feel sheepish.

━━━

When Millie and Ron left—Millie had business with Madam Pomfrey apparently and Ron went to see his brothers for something—Hermione and Adhara finally showed up, taking the others' previous spots on either side of Harry.

Adhara sat down with a loud thud, dumping her satchel on the table and grumbling under her breath.

"What's gotten into you?"

Adhara only glared at him.

On the other side, Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ignore her Harry, she's just angry people pay attention to her."

Harry's eyes squint, questioning.

"No, I'm annoyed that people don't mind their own business," Adhara huffed, shuffling all the plates out of her way to clear up the place. Harry watched her as she threw a tentative look towards the teachers' table and then back at himself.

Harry arched a brow.

Adhara glanced back at the table one last time before shutting up altogether.

Harry decided to let her be — she'll talk when she wants to — and turned to Hermione instead. "Didn't see you at Divination this morning. Where were you?"

"Oh! Uhm..."

Beside him, he heard Adhara say: "Course she wasn't. She was with me in Arithmancy."

"That's impossible. Hermione takes divination with Ron and me."

Both turned to Hermione, who only laughed nervously at their scrutinizing stare. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Haha yeah. Anyway! Adhara, didn't you have something to say to Harry?"

Harry now looked back at his godsister. She was glaring at the other girl before sitting down, facing Harry. She refused to look at him in the eye, making the boy grab a fistful of his uniform, anticipating. Her face stayed completely stoic as she asked: "Has Lupin been paying a weird amount of attention to you?"

"I don't think so? I haven't talked to him ever since that boggart lesson when he called me after I talked with Malfoy."

Adhara stared at him as if contemplating. Her nails drummed repeatedly on the wooden table, making Harry grow impatient.

"Spit it out already."

"Adhi, you said it yourself. He has the right to know."

Adhara blew out a long breath. She kept her eyes on her fingers, still refusing to meet Harry's eyes. "Lupin used to be friends with your dad."

Harry went still, his hand on his robes going limp.

"Good friends, according to my father's letters," she finished.

Harry didn't know how to react other than to shift his attention to his Defence Professor, who was at the table right behind Adhara.

━━━━

In the evening Adhara and Ron had to serve detention with Snape for their 'inappropriate display at breakfast' and for 'raising a wand at an unsuspecting student', she returned to the Slytherin Common Room late in the evening when something hit Adhara in her face. She pulled back the object and saw that it was a green robe. 'BLACK' was written in a dark colour on the back of the jersey, right above the number 5.

She looked behind her and saw Flint backing away from her. He raised his hand, holding an apple and flung it towards Adhara. She caught it effortlessly.

"Practice starts next week."

Adhara flung the half-eaten fruit back at the boy, who smoothly caught it back from the air.

━━━━

The Hogwarts acceptance letter came with a list on the back, enumerating which material the students required, and what they were allowed to bring. Three options were given for pets: a cat, an owl, or a toad.

A dog was certainly not on the list. So where the fuck did this stray come from?

Its round silver eyes looked as if they were glaring at her. So Adhara glared back.

She sat at the foot of a tree, on top of a cluster of chunky roots that kept her quilt from getting wet. The morning dew was still fresh, leaving the grass in the Forbidden Forest damp.

She wasn't fighting with her friends anymore. There was no need to come back to the forest. Though, Adhara found herself missing her long walks. The trees and the morning mist offered the perfect layer of privacy she wanted when reading her letters. Something that was quite difficult to obtain in a boarding school. And in an orphanage.

She never wandered too far in. There were centaurs around the place, and Adhara didn't fancy getting on their wrong side. Nor did she want to get caught. She stayed around the edge, where the patch of grass still reached, just deep enough to not be seen.

Apart from Malfoy last year—who she assumed visited the forest at a different time now because she hardly ever saw him anymore—and a few rabbits and deers here and there, Adhara has never met anyone, or anything for that matter, during her walks.

So it was quite a surprise when the thin black dog appeared from behind a tree trunk.

She thought the Grimm was supposed to be larger and more ferocious than this. Although it was big in size, the dog in front of her looked rather skinny. Its fur seemed scruffy, patches missing at certain parts, yet it grew over its paws. Claws digging into the dirt and ribs poking out of its side, it was definitely a stray. Unless the owner was very irresponsible and didn't know how to properly take care of a dog.

She reached inside her satchel for the muffin she packed this morning and held it out to the dog, who took a few steps back. Adhara thought it might have looked surprised for a second.

"I'm not sure if dogs can have muffins, but there's no chocolate, and it's better than nothing."

She leaned closer, trying to get the dog to come closer (hopefully it didn't have rabies), but the dog only stilled. It wasn't glaring anymore, which Adhara believed was a step forward. She wasn't going to force it, however, so she threw the muffin at its feet.

The animal eyed it, sniffing the pastry to make sure it was edible.

"The elves made it, so I'm sure it tastes good."

It looked back up at Adhara for a second before slowly taking a bite from the muffin.

Adhara didn't say anything more, deciding to leave the dog be. It wasn't bothering her, and she assumed she wasn't bothering it either. So she took out the second muffin for herself, going back to her letters.

━━━━

Harry walked towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with resolute steps. While Adhara was doing her best to avoid the new professor, he was working up the perfect opportunity to actually talk to Remus Lupin. And by perfect opportunity, he meant one that would make him sound casual, something like: "Oh, that reminds me, Professor Lupin, sir. Is it true you knew my parents? No pressure at all or anything, it's just that, I heard you all were very close friends, so I was just wondering, umm. Where were you this entire time while Dumbledore hauled me to my bitch of an aunt?"

Yeah, ok. Maybe not exactly like that. Perhaps more polite? He shouldn't use the word bitch either. The main goal was to ask the man about his parents, sound polite while doing so, and not come off as an eager toddler.

How exactly Harry was going to manage that, he didn't know. He'll figure it out once he's there.

Harry hurried his steps. He turned the corner, into the corridor where the classroom was but instead ran into the Weasley Twins.

"Harry!"

"Potter!"

"What are you-"

"-doing here?"

One of them, Harry wasn't sure which one of them, was leaning on the wall, arm hiding the view behind them. He tried to peak over their shoulders, but the other one grabbed his shoulders, holding him down.

"What are you two doing?"

Their smiles stretched from one side of their face to their other, looking more devilish than the Cheshire Cat. Harry eyed them suspiciously.

The twins looked at each other.

"Would you look, my dear Gred. My brother, my friend. Harry wants to know what we're up to," said the other one.

"I can see that," answered the first one. "What should we do then, Forge, my friend, my brother? Should we tell him?"

Forge's grin turned wider. "Can't make it too easy for the lad, now can we?"

"I'm afraid we can't, Gred!"

"No, I'm not Gred! You are!"

"Oh, that's true! I forget!" he laughed. He turned sharply then, expression turning serious suddenly and the edges of mischief still tugged their lips. "Now Harry," he pushed him away from the defence corridor and adjusted himself to fling his arm around Harry's shoulders. "We can't tell you what we're about to do. It's top secret."

"Top secret, indeed."

"You see, we're on a very important mission, right now."

"One that threatens our very honour!" cried out Forge. Or whatever his name was.

Harry stopped, pushing the arm away and facing the Devil Twins. "Does it have anything to do with Lupin? Cause I just do happen to know he's in his office right now, which is right in that corridor."

The twins blinked simultaneously. In synch. Harry wasn't sure how that was even possible.

Slowly, their cheshire grins came back to their face.

"Well, would you look that Gred, my brother, my friend! Little Harry is smarter than we thought!"

"I can see that, Forge, my friend, my brother!" He swung his arm back onto Harry's shoulders again, adopting that serious expression once again. "You see, Harry. We are on a very important mission."

"One that can jeopardize our reputation!"

"Yes, you've told me that already!" he smacked Gred's arm away. "Listen. I don't care about what you do. I just need to talk to Professor Lupin."

Gred and Forge exchanged another look.

"Umm, that may not be possible today."

"Why not?"

Forge started explaining first. "Well, we may or may not have filled the classroom-"

"-with loads and load and-"

"-and heaps and heaps of-"

"-centaur dung."

Harry's mouth fell open. "What?" he asked, but he was still trying to process what the brothers just told him. The dung of what now?

"Yup!" answered Gred enthusiastically. "Took us weeks to get our hand on a bag!"

"Weeks!"

"Camped out-"

"-at the Forbidden Forest."

"A real pain in the-"

"Wait!" Harry held up his hands. "You picked up...dung from centaurs? Those half-horse, half-human creatures who have a thing for space??"

"Yup!"

Harry only blinked.

"We had to, you know."

"Lupin is quite the challenge."

"Three failed pranks, on the man!"

"Three!"

"He even has Peeves in the palm of his hand!"

"It was a drastic situation."

"And drastic situations call for-"

"-drastic measures."

Harry was speechless. Ron had told him about the pranks his brothers threw around the school and back at home. He's witnessed some of them too, so he knew exactly how far they were willing to go. But........centaur dung? Really?

"You two-" he stopped talking abruptly. He looked at the space behind the two boys and took a step back.

"Not to worry, Harry ol' dear, ol' pal!"

"We didn't actually touch it. Gloves, impermeable spells and a few cleaning spells did the trick!"

"Yup! Lupin won't even know what he had coming! He'll be cleaning for wee-"

Two gigantic black bags fell to their feet, over their heads, stopping Forge in the middle of his sentence. Gloved hands rested on one of their shoulders. Harry watched the innocent smile on Remus Lupin's face get wider and wider.

"Boys. What do we have here?" he asked with a closed-eye smile. Harry took another step back.

"O-oh! Uhm. Professor-"

"-Lupin! How nice to see you! Ho-how is it going?"

He squeezed his hold on the two boys. "Oh, you know. Not much. Just trying to figure out what exactly I was cleaning out of my drawers and classroom. Apparently, it's centaur dung!"

"O-oh! Centaur dung, you say?"

"I wonder how that got there. Haha."

"Yeah! Harry, do you know?"

"Yes, sir! Maybe Harry knows-"

Lupin squeezed harder and lowered his voice. "If you clean it up in the next hour, I won't tell Dumbledore about your little adventure into the Forbidden Forest."

The twins, who were definitely not afraid of Dumbledore, only laughed nervously again. Harry took another step back.

"What adventure, sir?"

Lupin hummed, releasing his hold on the twins, and brought a hand to his chin, looking contemplative. "You know, Molly and I haven't talked since our days in the Order. Maybe I should send her an owl?"

Forge flung one of the black bags over his shoulder. "We're on our way!"

Gred took the other. "It won't even take an hour! Promise!"

"Thank you, boys. I knew I could count on you."

They fled. Professor Lupin chuckled under his breath. He was still smiling, but it was now it was a genuine one instead of the terrifying innocent one Harry witnessed mere seconds ago. He turned to him.

"Harry, I hear you needed to talk to me?"

Harry stopped, just now realizing that he was slowly walking away from the teacher.

"My classroom's occupied, right now. So why don't we go-?"

"Is it true you were friends with my mum and dad?!" Harry blurted out without thinking. He smacked a hand over his mouth.

Lupin looked too taken aback to respond properly.

Well, that could've gone better. At least, he didn't call anyone a bitch.

━━━━

Professor Lupin did, in fact, know his parents. He knew Sirius Black too but didn't sound too eager to talk about him, so the topic didn't stick long, ending only with some warnings from the man.

Harry had a lot he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask about his parents, he wanted to know more about his parents. He was done listening to insults and false facts about them from his aunt and uncle. He was tired of hearing over and over again just how good James Potter was at Quidditch and just how green Lily Evans' eyes were.

This was a man who knew his parents personally, who was best friends with them and even shared a dorm room with his father! He could potentially fill him in on everything Harry missed out on.

He couldn't help the slight tremble in his arms as he reached out to grab the picture album Lupin had handed him.

"How were they like?"

"Unlike what people might have thought, James was the mother hen of the group."

Harry snorted.

However, underneath all the excitement, Harry hid a layer of resentment. Resentment towards this man for never looking for him. For never visiting him and making sure he was alright. For never even sending him an owl, for keeping all this from him, for making him believe he was all alone.

Harry swallowed down the burning feeling at his throat. He had questions, he had many, many questions. But Remus Lupin didn't seem ready to answer his questions, so there was no point in asking them.

━━━━━━━━ ✥ ━━━━━━━━