No F's Given - Another Marauder's RP w/Lynx - ABANDONED

"How about we go down for a cuppa?" Remus hummed. "That way when our Hogsmeade date comes around, I can take you to the bookstore?"

"Okay!" she nodded happily. After thinking for a moment, they were almost at the tea shop. Hogsmeade wasn't that big and you could walk anywhere within a few minutes. "Are there any traditions that you find weird? Like jumping the broomstick?"

"Weird traditions..." Remus hummed in thought for a moment before snapping his fingers and looking at Bria. "I think passing down the father's name as a middle name to a kid is a bit strange of itself...because if that father had an unfortunate name like "Fleamount" or something of the sort, that poor kid gets it too."

"Oh, that would be awful!" Bria made a face, "I've never heard that one before!"

Remus made a face back and laughed, "I have. James has it, Sirius has it, Peter doesn't, I have it. A lot of wizards in the community have that type of tradition. Even witches follow it if the father doesn't. It's weird. When you first came to Hogwarts, what was the first thing that fascinated you?"

"The ceiling," Bria scratched her cheek, "I love the ceiling in the Great Hall and how it changes with the time of day or season. What about you?" they entered the shop and she took a deep breath in, "Ha, yup. I smell cinnamon and caramel apple for the autumn brews."

The shop was decorated with flying bats, and cobwebs that had real-looking spiders climbing about. The wood was aged, almost like it could fall apart even though it was sturdy enough. There was a few laughing pumpkins in the windows. "Let's sit down." He smiled at her. "I suppose how massive the castle was, and the ghosts. The ghosts were interesting to me."

"Nearly Headless is funny. I always found it kind of sad that Eri is terrified of them," she admitted, "Is there anything muggles do that confuses you at all?"

"Not too much. I'm half-blood. My mom is a muggle, and my dad is a wizard." Remus explained. "So there's a lot of things that I'm already exposed to a lot of things some of the purebloods might think is weird. Um..." He paused, thinking about it. "I think the still-pictures is what I find most weird. More..uncomfortable with it than anything I can think of."

"I like them myself. They're more stunning that way, when they're caught at /just/ the right moment, and sometimes like muggle professional photographers take a lot of time and effort to create really gorgeous shots. I like the ones where they're caught off guard, like eating ones, when they're opening their mouths wide open to take a bite of a burger, then they see the flash and they're shocked and horrified at the same time," Bria grinned, "Ah, I can be so mean."

They sat down at the bar stools up front and she agreed to a few sample shots of the teas for the season, before she looked at Remus, "I never met my father but I know he was the muggle in my parental standing. After all, my mom went to the periwinkle ballerina school."

"You really hate that school," Remus laughed. "I won't ask why, I can only guess that the uniforms are just the icing of the cake." He too decided to do a few samples as well, since it would be fun to check them out. "You don't go home for the holidays, do you?"

"No reason to. No one's there to celebrate. Apparently my great-grandmother died during Thanksgiving when my mom was young and while my mom loved Christmas, it died when I came here for my first year," She did sound a little heartbroken even if her face was casual like she didn't care anymore, "I went home and I haven't since. No tree, no holiday dinner, no decor, no gifts even if it's the simple kind like a pair of socks. So? I just stay here and don't waste my time."

Remus felt his heart break. It explained why loneliness for her was probably her biggest fear. An empty home, with no one to remember her. "My friends and I stay here for the Holidays too, at least till Summer. Then we trade houses until we can't." Meaning the full moon. "Sirius hates his home. James, Raiden, myself, and Peter are the only ones so far that don't come from a broken home. Sirius refuses to come over, considering I'm...not exactly too well off. I mean I'm not poor, but...I'm not exactly rich either. We have to be careful with our money. Peter on the other hand has a small house. So it's usually James or Raiden's we crash at. Who...do you go to during the Summer? Eri? Rachel?"

"I'll save you loads of trouble for the future," Bria reached out and placed her hand on his, looking him right in the face, "A poor man's date is the best date. The humbleness of it is more touching and meaningful to me than a fancy dinner. Don't wear a tie if you don't want to," she grinned and proceeded to answer his question, "I steal Rae from her home and we bunk at Eri's. Why haven't you guys? I swear we would've met a lot sooner if you did. That /forest/ of hers? The perfect place to /play/!" she emphasized it with a wink. His wolf side would love that so much she believed.

"To be honest, I don't recall why." Remus said with a frown. "That's a good point, it would've been fun to meet you all so much sooner." Maybe Raiden didn't think that they'd be comfortable with him tagging with his girlfriend and forcing them to be all wheels of the bus. "But that's a good idea to do next summer. If we're able to. I'd have to ask Eri if that's something that can happen."

"I was going to suggest it anyway and tell you you can't tell me no," Bria laughed brightly and she pulled her hand away only to clap excitedly when their tea was slid in front of them, "Oh, which one to try first..."

"Hmm, why not go from one end and finish to the next?" Remus missed her hand, he had been ready to turn his hand up so that he could hold hers properly, but the excitement on her face and the way she expressed it was enough for him. "I asked you two questions in a row by the way. It's your turn to ask me."

"Oooh, right!" Bria nodded, starting at the left of her row, contemplated the taste, and then finished the rest of the glass, "I have a few, but I'm being a good girl and keeping it clean for our first date," she giggled, "Okay, so...I'm going to delve into a deeper territory," she informed him, "Divination. What's your opinion on it? Not school and what they teach us, because let's face it, half of the students in that class are just in it because it's required to take an elective and can't see anything in a teacup that isn't just blobs. I'm talking real, legit Divination."

"I haven't met anyone yet that can claim themselves to be a Seer and not be...liars." Remus said carefully as he took a drink of his, he started on the right rather than the left, and hummed. It was a nice taste. "I know that Raiden is kind of a Seer, but not in the way of future telling or something like that. His visions come in dreams and they take shape in mostly animals. So he does a lot of things with that. Though I will say that it could be due to his blood rather than his magic." He pursed his lips together. "To be honest, I don't have much of an opinion due to the fact that I haven't met anyone or seen anything real. I have nothing to compare it to."

"You have met someone...maybe two, though the other's still not sure. It doesn't happen often enough for it to be questionable," Bria pressed her lips together in a sort of kissing face, tracing the rim of her next sample. Then she took it and tried it, made a face and slid it over, "Yeah I don't much care for cinnamon ones."

"I'll keep the cinnamon ones in mind then for next time." Remus laughed as he took another sample and tried it. "This one as a bit of a strong flavor for me. Too dark and has a nutty flavor to it. I'm not exactly sure what kind it is." He thought about it. "Rae did say something about visions."

Bria tried the next one that looked similar to the one he had and hummed, "Oh, that's good. I'll take yours," she chuckled, "Rae's one. Yes. I doubt she'd be surprised me telling you, but I'd confront her about it and let her tell you instead," she smiled, "She is good with a lot of Divination stuff, but like anyone she has her favorites. She loves reading her cards to people."

"I do remember hearing a bunch of classmates saying that during October one of the Ravenclaws holds a bit of a "card-reading" day. Only a certain number of people get read and it's always during the lunch hour. The only reason why I remember that is because James wanted to crash it with a prank and Sirius said that it'd be boring and too easy. I wonder if that was her." Remus said as he passed his cup to Bria and took another sample. It was one of the cinnamon ones that she had been talking about. "Oh...this /is/ strong. I see why you don't like it." He sneezed. "Sorry."

Bria covered her mouth, looking at him with wide eyes that sparkled. Her shoulders shook for a bit but she finally composed herself, "That was /so adorable/!" she tried really hard to stay calm even if she as grinning huge, "Um...yes, yes, that was Rae. I have my own set of oracle cards that have angels on them, but I only do private readings. I don't like going public with them."

"It sounds interesting to hear...I don't want to put pressure on you or anything of the sort, but I would love to see what kind of cards those are." Remus smiled at her. "Oracle cards I haven't heard of. Tarot seems to be the popular set."

"Oracle cards are healing ones. There's no such thing as a 'bad' reading unless you, of course, get a bunch of upside down cards which usually just mean they're things you need to work on," Bria explained, "I last used them with Raiden and Eri. Sometimes I break them out if I'm curious about something. I don't have a...particular way or order that I do them. Sometime they literally jump out at me. I've had a reading with twenty cards before and they were all relevant. That was an exhausting one."

Remus' eyes widened. "I can't imagine that type of reading. That had to be a nightmare of it's own right. Healing cards though, that sounds a lot better than the Tarot cards. That's almost the luck of the draw in that one." He laughed gently. "But I understand how that can get tiring. Perhaps it's safer not to do any readings for us." He shook his head, still chuckling. "Hm, another question?" He asked as he took his cup and sipped.

"It's your turn," Bria tipped her glass to him and was happy to discover it was a caramel apple one, "Oh, I have to get this one."

"Rae mentioned to me that we might want to clarify what "PDA" means to each other. Since our "subtle" aren't exactly the same either." Remus frowned after a moment. "So maybe you should go first?"

Bria blinked at him, "I thought...um...alright," she shifted, "Well, no PDA to me means no touching. Hand-holding maybe, but nothing like hugs or kisses. I've...been drinking up what you offered me today thinking it was just because it was my birthday you were making an exception." She moved in her chair again uncomfortably, "For PDA I wouldn't be so lewd as to have make-out sessions in the hallway. I feel like Rae on that matter, but little pecks on the cheeks or quick fly-by kisses are adorable. I see Eri and Raiden do that and it makes me squeal internally. They really are the sweetest couple. They have that respectable PDA where it's not too much but it's obvious it's enough for them."

"I like hugs and kisses, but mostly short and sweet." Remus explained. "Hand holding I love the most. I don't want to put my arm around you, mostly because I don't want to excite my wolf-side if you catch my drift."

"Why, if I may ask? Why would that be a bad thing?" Bria tilted her head at him, brows knitted.

Remus raised an eyebrow at her, uncertain if she was kidding or not. "No one knows that I'm a werewolf. If I get possessive or something, someone could be suspicious about it. I could get into trouble, or really hurt someone and I don't want that. So, it's best to play it safe. I do like physical touches and things, and in private I will be more than happy to hold you and kiss you and cuddle you, but in front of people it's like a challenge."

"Raiden can be possessive of Eri and no one thinks anything of it. I doubt Sirius would draw much attention, either, if Rae allowed him to hold her close like that and he got possessive," Bria pointed out, but she quickly continued before he could become exasperated, "I wouldn't...want to stress you out unnecessarily. Personally, I'd enjoy it...but I won't make you uncomfortable if I can help it." She smiled as reassuringly as possible, "I'm glad you told me. I'm sure you figured, but I've been so used to Rae's no PDA that I didn't think to ask you your own do's and don'ts. How private is private? Common room, library private or alone slash with your friends private?"

"Common room, friends, and library. Depending on how frisky we get." Remus chuckled, shaking his head as he took another drink. She had a point, but he felt like it was going over her head just a bit. He really hoped that she was biting off more than she could chew and break it off. He really, really hoped.

~*~

Bria ran her hand over her face again. She'd taken the time before they left the Three Broomsticks to scrub the make-up from her face because it was bothering her and she felt refreshed. Also it saved time for going to bed. Thankfully they both still had plenty of time to get ready for sleep without waking up the others who would be doing their own thing to unwind like talking about their day to their roommates or reading books. The Common Room was empty in itself, however, and Bria was relieved. "Looks like your friends didn't stay up so they could tease us mercilessly and hound us for details. You'll probably get it tomorrow, though."

"More than likely." Remus laughed as he gently turned around. "Thank you for coming out with me." He leaned down and gently pressed a kiss against her lips. "I hope you sleep well tonight." He murmured as he parted just a breath away.

Rae knew her stuff, as Bria hooked her finger in his tie, "I'm sure we both will. We don't have to French or anything, but I want to linger a bit longer than that," she rumbled just a bit.

Remus laughed and allowed her to pull him closer to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips against hers again, holding her close and enjoying how she felt against him. She was soft, but not...vulnerable.

~*~

/Laughing and enjoying myself with my friends. We pranked someone and it was successful, I could see it on our faces. Then I watched as my smile faded and suddenly my friends were still laughing, but this time...it was without me, and I was getting further away, darkness around me while they were still bright and happy. I tried to run to them, calling their names, but I got farther instead of closer./

Rachel frowned as she read the text in Sirius’ dream diary. Today they were supposed to interpret what was being written down in the diaries and predicting what was to come. She handed her dream journal over to Sirius, but was a little hesitant on it.

She took out her quill and tapped the feathery tip to her lips as she thought about how to write down her response to the dream. She hated writing in someone’s diary. It was supposed to be private. She dipped her quill in ink and began writing, speaking as she wrote. “It looks like to me that something or someone may distance you away from your friends. Perhaps it’s your own mentality and actions. Maybe it’s from something else entirely. The darkness that shrouds you symbolizes loneliness and isolation. So it appears to me that you separated from your friends unwillingly and without reconciliation. They’re your beacon of happiness and hope, and something that you feel is getting father and farther away from you. If they’re so important to you, then be mindful.” She peered over at Sirius, "That's a sad dream."

"The next one's even better..." Sirius drawled, not showing any emotional reaction to it, "That was a pretty common one, actually, over the last couple years."

“I can understand that,” Rachel frowned as she blew on the ink to make it dry faster before she looked to the next page. “I mean…” She glanced up and shrugged. “You read my dream.” She pointed at her diary. “I’m not filled with sunshine butterflies either.”

/I’m standing in the hospital room with a white bed and a person lying underneath it. I can hear a heart monitor going out and faceless doctors standing around her. I’m screaming, screaming, don’t turn it off. She’s not dead. But the doctors are wearing masks and their faces are nothing but shadows.

My dream changed and I’m at home, photographs littered all over the floor, glass scattered around like glitter. I pick up one of the pictures and a shard of glass cut me. It’s a picture of my mom.

I can hear him scream, “You had the power to save her, you selfish bitch.”/

Sirius just stared at it, reading it a few times before glancing up at her while he leaned over to start writing, "I didn't know...your mother was gone. I'm so sorry. I bet she was a wonderful person, just like you. The last line is your guilt. It may have been said, but it's your melancholy that makes you repeat it." He didn't speak about his thoughts beyond that for privacy and respect. How this would be future-telling, though...perhaps she feared she wouldn't be able to save someone again, whether or not it was her own fault?

/About Regulas (Note for Fuchsia - my little brother by two years. A Slytherin.)

It was Christmas. Even though my family doesn't celebrate it. Why am I here? I don't go home for Christmas. I look around at the endlessly dreary, grey and dark decor of my house. I'm on the couch. Regs gives me a bright present that stands out like a Lumos spell in a pitch black room. Gryffindor colors. Excited I thank Regs, noting how bright his silver eyes are, like mine. I know he's excited, too, even if his expression is more...subdued than my own.

Inside it's a glass quill similar to the one he gave me when I was twelve. Different design but just as beautiful, and a lovely silver ink. I thought of our eyes again. Looking up I was about to jump and hug him when I froze. His eyes were horror while his expression schooled, and I turned around to see my mother. She knocked me down. The quill fell to the ground, shattering in half. The ink also broke. I gathered the pieces in my hands and cried. Then the darkness slowly surrounded and swallowed me./

Her lips were pursed in sadness and heartbreak as she read this dream. She dipped her quill into the ink pot and easily wrote, /A silver quill means a bleeding heart. The quill is used for communication and silver means stable and balance. Your brother who gave you the quill wished to be apart of your balance and your stability. The light to your dark, the yin to your yang. Your mother broke the quill, shattering that balance and tearing apart the promise of communicating with your family. Since it’s Christmas, it means that there’s a new cycle beginning. The four elements of Christmas is Peace, Joy, Love, and Faith (regardless of religion). It appears your mother is Scrooge in this Christmas Carol./ She stopped writing and hastily wiped at her eyes.  Man if she was crying /now/, then there was really no hope for her in later dreams.

Her next dream was just as sad.

/I’m lying in a hole bound and gagged. I’m paralyzed as I can hear a voice above me. I’m trying to get up, I’m trying to scream. Sand starts to pour down from the top of the earth and I’m wishing desperately that I had a bell or something to tell someone that I’m still alive. Don’t bury me, I’m still alive.

I wonder if my mother was ever afraid when she was buried. Did she even know that she was suffocating to death?/

Sirius would not be surprised if he paled at that one. That was terrifying. What did he take from that? He took a long moment to consider it before writing. "This is...frustrations in your waking life...a relationship in which you feel trapped...you feel like you're faced with no choice or you can't make up your mind. Um...future meaning..." Merlin he was worse at this than he thought. "Think outside the box? Begin to find ways to solve your problems. Don't let situations trap you like this, it's bad for your health," the last line he didn't write, it was more of him talking to himself. "It....might mean you're also holding onto old habits and behaviors that aren't applicable to you anymore. Get rid of these negativeness so you can change for the better." And....that was it. He /really/ had no idea where to go from there.

/Another one with my friends. This time they didn't notice me when I walked in./
A week after the Regulas one.

/One with you. You kept walking away and I couldn't get your attention./
A few days later.

/The first letter I wrote you. I was so in awe...I didn't know how to go about it./
After their date and she gave him hers.

Rachel’s eyes widened as she read the last dream. She thought that the first two were quite obvious. He feared of being abandoned. But the third dream, of the letter that he gave her and how he was so happy about it since it was a small note telling her about the courtyard. She remembered how she gave him a response letter and it became a fun game to send owls during breakfast so that he wouldn’t feel so lonely not getting anything. It was nice having a letter to look forward too as well.

She tapped her quill  a few times, uncertain what to write. She dipped her quill into the ink pot, paused, dipped it again, and paused again. Finally she figured out what to write and scraped the excess ink from the quill in order to write.

“You found hope in a loveless place.” It was the only thing she could come up with.

Her dreams were along the same lines. Trapped, shadows, screaming, photographs, hospitals…until Sirius came across one dream that she had soon after the date.

/I dreamed of a run-down house, that looked like it needed some desperate fixing on the facade. Inside, was a large living room that was filled with browns and beiges and a gorgeous fireplace. The carpet needed to be torn out, but the deep green color inspired me to keep it. Even though it’s torn apart, I explored the garage and upstairs into the attic.

The attic was like a small apartment filled with gorgeous yellow reflecting on the walls. The carpet was plush on my feet and I could smell perfume. Vanilla. Just like my mom used to wear. I could hear voices and a person is in the apartment building. He shows me where the small kitchenette is, and that a closet had been transformed into a room. There’s no bedroom, just an air mattress.

I don’t know how, but I’m in his bed and he’s holding me tightly. I hear a car pull in and I look out the window. He assures me that it’s his friends and I go back to sleep./

The second dream happened a few days later.

/I had a dream of the same house again. Only this time i was looking at a run down bedroom. It’s huge, but it’s obvious that it had been manipulated by tearing apart other rooms and closets to make it that way. The carpet is horrid and the ground is hard. The walls are white, and I can see the shadows linger in every corner of the room. I’m scared to go down the hallway that leads to the bathroom and the second bedroom. I don’t want to go down there.

Someone comes up behind me and I scream.

He laughs like it’s funny and I think I smacked him.

He asks me to come with him and the scene changes to a huge church. Cathedral I want to call it. It looks antique and black…with stained gothic glass and a staple that looks…well….horrors. We go inside and I can hear a choir practice a hunting song. We’re not there for worship…but everyone’s wearing black and solemn. I feel out of place, I’m not wearing black. Neither is he. We’re both wearing a different color. I think it was purple, or maybe it was another color. I don’t know. We’re out of sync…

I saw a flash of white light and we’re back in the house again.

I woke up afterwards./

"Okay..." Sirius took a deep breath and rubbed his temples, "This is a complicated one. Just...give me a bit..." he didn't speak out loud for this one. There was just too much information. Dear Merlin she had so much to hide, and so much to live for if she just /pushed forward/. Filling his pen, he began his scrawl. The attic could signify difficulties in your life after a long period of struggle. A bedroom is an aspect of yourself that you keep private and hidden. She saw a big bedroom in her dream so that meant that she keeps /too/ much hidden.

To go through a door meant to go through a new opportunity. To see the floor meant to represent her security. Hallways mean self-exploration. Rae didn't want to go down the hallway, meaning she didn't want to really go through a journey. The house is run down, meaning that it represents her and her soul and herself. It had to mean that she's suffering from emotional and psychological things and she may need to update her thoughts.

She saw a green floor, and felt inspired for it. Green means balance and harmony. It's creating a balance between the head and the heart. It also means growth and renewal as well as love of family, friends, and home. It can mean abundance. It can have negatives on possessiveness and a need to own people or things, but he didn't see it like that in this dream. The yellow walls were anxiety, but...on the flip side it also meant hope, happiness, cheerfulness, and fun.

Sirius knew he had a lot to work with down the road, but for now he'd just stay silent.

/With my friends again. I saw darkness receding to reveal the portait door, Bria walking through with you. It was a happy dream./

Rachel’s lips curved into a bright smile. She didn’t want to write nor predict what this meant. She was just happy that he had a dream that didn’t end in sadness or despair. She was glad that he saw her and Bria as people that wouldn’t let him stick in the darkness for too long. She looked up at him and watched him scrawl down his thoughts, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

And for a moment, she wondered why she was denying herself this. His hair was falling into his face so he had to push it back sometimes. His eyes were a deep silver, nearing grey and she could tell it was out of sadness and concentration.

It’s the second time she ever felt her heart trip over someone. The first time, it ended in disaster. But…maybe there was hope for a second? If she just…tried?

She looked back at the diary and said softly, “I think you dreamed a good dream here. Of friends coming to save you when you thought you didn’t have any and you’re willing to push yourself to have a new opportunity.”

"Perhaps you should take a cue from my book?" Sirius purred hintingly, "Read the last one, it's my favorite. I'm still writing from that double one."

/In the hallway with you, laughing and walking backwards while you roll your eyes with a smile, before I walk straight and we stop at your next class with me giving you a kiss on the cheek, running away with a laugh at your glare. I leave you, but it's with anticipation to see you again, not a goodbye./

Rachel’s cheeks burned brightly as she covered her face, her quill accidentally marking across her hand and nose since she didn’t put it down. She didn’t say anything, but after a moment, she nodded her head a few quick times and she pulled her hands away from her face. “Are you a Seer?”

Sirius snorted, finally setting his quill down from his long interpretation and sat back to breathe and rest his eyes, "Nope. Just smart, determined, stubborn, and hopeful."


[2/7/16, 11:44 PM] Arjei Lynne (esu.is.a.werewolf@gmail.com): “Well, you’re more than that. Look at my other dream. It’s the last one, I swear.” Rachel promised, grinning at his exasperated look. She felt awful that he had to interpret so much, but she hoped that this one would lighten his spirits.

/Sirius and I are sitting at the lake during the spring. His tie’s gone and his hair’s messed up. His shirt is unbuttoned a little since it’s humid and hot out. We’re talking and he shoves me into the lake. The water’s cool against my skin and I appear up. He laughs at me, falling on his back. I tackle him and he screams since the water and my skin is so cold.

Apparently I have seaweed in my hair, or something…but he doesn’t care. He kisses me and gives me an apple blossom. I never felt so happy before. He takes my worries away./

Eyes wide, Sirius felt them suddenly prickle. It was...about them. The flower and seaweed...he dipped his pen and wrote it's meaning. Apple blossom meant Heart's pleasure and delights. Ability to transform mood and lift spirits. The seaweed meant support in life. "This is just...so different from the others." He wiped his eyes before he could really start to cry. He spoke what he was writing, "This...it has to mean that things are going to look up for you in life soon. All of those are about transformation and things holding you back, but this is a complete turn-around and that's...that's what I really hope for. You deserve to be happy, after all that tragedy. Can the same be said for me?" The specifics were illusive, but that could be for another time. This was a lot to take in for either of them.

"I told you, you have to be a Seer." Rachel's heart thudded hard against her chest. Why did she have to fall in love with him /now/? It felt weird and, and she was going to screw this up. For once her head didn't have control over her, but her heart did. "I want that. I want your dream to come true first. My dream can wait."

~*~

“Look what came in the mail!” James shouted as he burst through the classroom’s door. Bria and Rem were cuddling against the wall, Bria leaning against his chest and Rem’s arms wrapped around her waist. Peter was sitting on the desk, his legs kicking back and forth.They all looked up and over at James with raised eyebrows and confused expressions on their faces. He was holding a blue long package in his hand over his head like a trophy of some sort. Rae glanced over at Rem and Bria, and noticed a mischievous spark in her best friend’s eye. Oh god, she was going to have to be careful around food for a few days apparently.

"Oreos?" Remus asked as James set the package down on a nearby table. He should have figured that James was going to take Bria's advice and buy them. He just hoped that he hadn't tampered with them yet, since he doubted Sirius had ever had them, let alone Peter.

"Yep! All the way from the Americas." James beamed proudly. "The delivery took a bit longer than expected. I wonder if their owls are a lot slower than ours or if it's distance. Either way, they're here now and I'm flipping excited to try it."

"Well there's an /ocean/ they have to cross. American planes take at /least/ sixteen hours," Bria explained to James, "Anyway, open it up and share!" she beamed.

"What are they?" Sirius inspected the package, poking it like it might blow up, "Biscuits?"

"Chocolate biscuits with some sort of cream in the middle." James explained as he opened the package and gave one to Sirius and turned around to give one to Peter. "Do you want one, Moony? I doubt you want to disturb the cat on your lap." Rachel snorted and coughed to hide her laughter.

"Only if you're willing to suffer a long walk over here, Prongs." Remus responded easily enough.

"I'm suffering tremendously with a heavy package just to give you an oreo." James rolled his eyes as he picked up the package and headed over to them. He held it out so they could grab one. "Such a hardship doing this."

"I'll enjoy the biscuit immensely in honor of your martyrdom then." Remus replied dryly.

"That sounds like a muggle church thing..." James wasn't sure how to take that. "But I'll take it."

Bria grinned and took the top off hers, licking at the cream, "You got the double stuffed! Good job, you remembered!"

Sirius arched a brow at Bria before he just bit into his, crunching it before humming, "Not bad. It's sweet but not too much at the same time?"

Peter decided to try taking the top off, but he ate it first and then he took a bite from the rest of it, "It's okay if you like chocolate and frosting."

"Bria hates me, I always eat the frosting but toss out the chocolate part." Rae said as James walked over to her. She took a pile of four since she knew that if she didn't eat between readings she'd pass out from the drainage energy. "Okay. So..." she took a breath. "Traditionally I'd use Tarot cards, but Bria over there," she waved over at her friend. "Begged me to use my Faeries since and I quote "No one knows what the fuck an Oracle card is and you explain it better than I ever could" so...we're doing my Oracle deck of Faeries."

"Why Faeries?" James asked as he set the package down and sat across from her. Rachel sitting behind a desk, mindlessly shuffling the cards. "Like...aren't all Oracle cards the same?"

"Nope. My cards are specific to the environment and spiritual connection to the earth and to yourself. There a "World" deck that I know of that talks about traveling and personal journeys, so it depends on the deck and what you're looking for. The only thing that stays the same with the Oracle cards is that it's always about self before future. This doesn't predict the future, it just tells you how to manage it. For an example, if you're using the "World" deck, it'll tell you how to manage a journey that's gone south. If you're using my Faery deck, it'll tell you how to stay connected and not...I don't know, go mad and go out in a blaze of glory."

"There's so many oracle decks. Personally I find them easier to understand than Tarot. All those...five of swords or whatever? So confusing!" Bria whined, "I'd love to collect, but there's a trick to them. You can't just buy whatever you want. You don't buy them because they look pretty. They have to...speak to you. They're special that way."

"I have a real cute tarot deck that makes the guys blush every time I hand it over to them to shuffle." Rachel snorted. "I've been thinking of getting an Arthur tarot deck. Now that would be fantastic."

"King Arthur of Camelot? They have tarot cards of that?" Remus was impressed by hearing that. "I'm shocked that there's so much. Is that something you're taught in Divination?"

"No unfortunately, just how to read so that if you do find a deck, it might work." Rachel shrugged. "It's so popular that even if it doesn't speak to you, you can manipulate it to make it work. Oracle cards are bit more...finicky."

"So how does this deck work." James shifted in his seat and pulled his sleeves up. "Do I got to say anything to awaken the cards or something?"

"Just shuffle and think of your question or even what you want to focus on to heal." Rachel shrugged. "If you want to say a prayer I won't stop you."

"Wouldn't know who to pray to that wouldn't fuck me over." James replied as he took the cards and started shuffling. "The cards are huge. I'm used to playing card size. Damn."

She laughed.

James shuffled and his mind wandered to Lily. Lily who was fiery and smart and had excellent humor. A girl who wasn’t afraid to get up in someone’s face if they were doing something wrong and how she would hold herself with confidence that he hadn’t seen in any other girl. He thought of how he would be able to get a hold of her, let alone how to start opening a new door. He handed the deck back and Rachel began an interesting spread of seven cards, all laid in a shape of an L.

The first card was an upside down “New Opportunities”, which had a faery looking out of a window, the light beckoning her away from the dark room. A galaxy was up ahead. “Well, you’re not exactly helping yourself here. Every time you have a door that’s open, you don’t go through it.” Rachel told him. “Instead you go to what you know since that’s more comfortable for you and therefore miss your chances to talk to someone. That’s why you fucked up on your first crush.”

James winced. That was true. His first crush had been on a Hufflepuff before it was Lily. He never spoke to the girl and therefore the crush faded very quickly. Only to reignite with Lily.

“The second card,” Rachel tapped on a beautiful faery that looked a lot like Eri it was a little scary. Her blonde hair was wavy and she wore a white dress. On her head was a beautiful pink flower crown and the background was a deep forest. “Right now, you’re mind is complete chaos. You don’t know what to do, how to act, so on and so forth. Your mind goes into overload and you over think things when you’re with Lily.”

“How did you know it was about Lily?”

“Well, I’m a Seer.” Rae deadpanned, at his incredulous look, she rolled her eyes. “You were muttering her name while shuffling.”

“Oh…”

Rachel went on to the third card. This card was risqué as hell. A faery sat with her legs somewhat clothed, bathed in a romantic orange and yellow light completely naked save for the long hair draped to hide her breasts. “You don’t want your relationship to be based on pure sex.” She said bluntly. “You want a relationship that was a little more romantic and you want a relationship that arouses your intellect rather than…the down stairs apartment.”

James raised an eyebrow at her. “Really.”

“I am not Bria you will not hear me say anything sexual unless someone wants a scathing comment.” Rachel replied.

“You’re just a mean person underneath all that cold aren’t you?”

“I am always cold, why do you think I wear a jacket?” Rachel snickered. “Moving on.”

This faery card had to be the interesting one. A faery was traveling, carrying a sword with her and her head was covered with a scarf. Her expression was filled with worry and concern and behind her was a castle. “You don’t want to be coddled in a relationship.” Rachel explained. “You don’t want a relationship to be tamed. You want a relationship that is filled with excitement and without many boundaries. You want to be able to push and push to your limits and you want your partner to also be pushed to theirs. You want to be spontaneous and to have someone that works well with that type of mind set.”

“This is sorcery.” James muttered, his breath taken away.

“This is what you asked for.” Rachel smiled as she tapped another card. This one was one of the few that were actually upright in position. “In order to make this relationship even remotely work, is that you have something to give her and oddly enough you give to the rest of us, you just fail to give it to her.” She tapped on a faery with pure joy, covering her mouth in delight and laughter. “Laughter. Give her that. Bring out your sense of humor that doesn’t require pranks. You’re witty James and Lily’s going to find that a little more exciting and intriguing than your pranks. I mean sure, she likes the pranks, just not when it’s on the Slytherins considering who she’s friends with, but not everything is about pranks. I mean look at our back and forth.”

“True…”

“Last card,” Rachel smiled. This card was a faery peering at a river, about to take a step. “A possibility after all is said and done is to move forward and move without looking back. Keep taking new opportunities, continue to challenge your partner, continue to make her laugh, and recognize that while boundaries are good and limits are good, you can do other things that can bring flavor. So…there’s not much here for you to worry about.”

“Damn…” James stared at the cards and looked at Rachel. His expression was filled with shocked, but Rachel could tell that he was filled with sincere gratitude.

Bria clapped her hands once, "That was beautiful! You have a lot to look forward to, Prongs."

Sirius clapped James' shoulder, "Of course you couldn't resist thinking about our favorite redhead! What else would get you all up in knots?" he grinned mischievously.

Peter simply peered at the cards, not feeling the need to be vocal about his thoughts. Instead, he reached down and picked up the box that had the cover photo, "These are lovely. I can tell they're well cared for."

"They're a gift from my Auntie!" Rachel puffed herself up in pride. "She dabbles a bit in muggle magic here and there, but it's not her main shtick. Do you want a reading Peter? I'll be more than happy to give you one."

"I'm not sure what to focus on, so would a general reading be okay?" Peter asked as James got up and went to a desk with Sirius. "You know, it's like you're the teacher and we're your students."

Rachel gave the cards to Peter who shuffled them thoughtfully. Once he was done, he handed the cards back to Rachel who did an interesting spread. First card was on top and then underneath it was three cards in a row, down at the bottom was another single card, and another row of three. The last card was single. She paused in a hum as she looked at the spread before her.

The first card was of a colored scratch art of a faery scattering small dust of light. Her body was mostly over cast in shadows, but whatever light touched brought color to the picture. “Okay so, if someone were to get to know you. They’d know that you have an positive expectation in your life. You have a lot of hopes and dreams and you see that in people as well. You see the best of people, which is good. You have a good friendship and you don’t hold them back or weigh them down. They need that positive outlook even when you think they don’t care.”

"That picture is gorgeous. It's impressive you don't have to refer to the guidebook in the box," Peter had a genuine look of pleasure on his face, "I try my best, though. In response to that."

“I love scratch art, it’s always interesting how pictures come out,” Rachel agreed with a bright smile. She pointed to the second card. “Your statement fits this card actually.” she tapped on the card of a Faery happy in a butterfly garden, leaning against a stone table. “You’re expression is creative. Which means you’re an artist of some sort. Writing, drawing, whatever craft that you’re good at, you know how to express yourself in. And right now, all of your energy is going into that focus.”

"Very much so," Peter agreed, but didn't say anything beyond that, interested to know what was next.

Funnily enough the third card was the same card that James had upside down as well. It was…weird to have that happen twice. “Unlike the upside down in James’ reading, this means something a bit different for you.” She told Peter as she tapped the “Feeling Safe” card. “Your worry is your safety. Am I safe. Am I secure with my situation, with my friends, with this situation. Is my response flight or fight, and most of the time, it’s going to be flight because worrying about your safety means you’re worried about your life.”

Peter furrowed his brows, not too sure how to feel about that. "Why does it mean something different? Is this a bad thing?"

"It means something different because of the spread that we're doing. If it was romance, I would tell you the same thing I told James. But since this is a general reading and this is about mostly you and your thoughts and your emotions, it has a different meaning. Whether or not this is "bad" is up to you. My cards are neutral in bad and good. They're actually very grey and it depends highly on the person who is being read rather than me who is the reader." Rachel explained gently, knowing too well that this was probably jarring. Hell, it was jarring for her to see it twice.

Peter frowned, but he nodded. "Okay. Then...what's the next card? I'm sure there'll be a guidance in there for what to do."

"Well, once you read this card then what to do will come next." The card that she was pointing to was mainly focused on pinkish white flowers. The faery was barely seen as she was flitting around to flower to flower. “As you are slowly but surely you’re about to come into your own person. You’re waking up and realizing who you are. Maybe you’re not a prankster like everyone thought. Maybe you’re an artist and that’s okay. Whatever your true self is, embrace it. But as you embrace it, be careful not to let other factors tarnish it. Like pressure to be someone your not, or to be more than what you are. Yourself is you and it’s good. It's possible that's why you're not feeling safe."

Peter tilted his head at that, "Art...I do like drawing. I'm helping the others with a special project, in fact. So is this saying to focus on that and not worry about pranking people? If I'm in the mood I'm in the mood, if not just ignore them?"

"Exactly," Rachel nodded her head. "Otherwise, you're not going to have fun and you're going to feel like you're being dragged around. If they're your friends, and I hope they are, they'll understand 110%."

"You know, Peter that I'm going to support you in which ever you decide to do." Remus told Peter gently as he heard Rae say that he needed the support of his friends. "I haven't see you sketch as much, and perhaps we need to push you to express yourself more in your art instead of always making you do things when you don't want to do them. If Pads and Prongs bother you at any point, I'll get them off your back if need be."

James looked a little hurt. "I am sorry Peter, for not realizing any of this. I don't like leaving out my friend when we do things. It's so much fun to do things together. So....please let us know."

"I didn't think we were being bad friends," Sirius also look put out.

Bria giggled at them, "They're just excitable squirrels."

"Bright eyed and bushy-tailed," Peter agreed.

Rachel cracked up hard enough to cover her face with her hands. "I just imagined them turning into squirrels." She said through her muffled laughter.

"They'd be /everywhere/," Bria snickered.

"They'd be in the /walls/. They do like finding new places to hide," Peter pointed out.

"Oh my god," Rachel snorted and took a minute to calm herself down. "While it's good and all that they're now aware to support you. You have a bit of work to do yourself." She pointed a cheerful yellow card that had a faery sitting down and observing a blue dragonfly. "Yes or no. Do I honestly want to do this thing, do I honestly not want to do this thing? You're going to be tempted to say yes when you want to say no and visa versa so be aware and be honest with what you really want."

Peter nodded, "I like that thought. That sounds like a good plan."

She took a bit of a breath so that she wouldn't start laughing at the image of a black squirrel running away from Mrs. Norris. "Also you have to admit some truths about yourself. Don't go thinking that you have to be more or less than yourself. You're becoming aware of who you are, and you have to look at your environment and be honest about it. Don't let peer pressure tarnish you."

"I'll try, like I said before," Peter grinned at her, "I feel like that's the end of it but I see four more cards. I hope they don't just repeat themselves, I get the message."

"Well the the next one is a repeat so I'm not going to be worried about it since I just told you to be aware of your enviorment. The other card is talkng about noticing the toxic things in your environment and how you might want to get rid of them since they're only going to hurt you. Now this is where things get interesting. You do this naturally, you don't let things bother you. You don't let problems weigh you down to the point where you're always going over it in your head. What I'd do is find the source of a repeated problem or situation that you find toxic to yourself and decide whether or not it's worth keeping that person or situation around. The last card is the same card as James. Move on fearlessly. Keep aware of your environment, keep aware of whose toxic and whose not, and be honest with yourself and don't look back. You can't keep up with the "what ifs" So once you do all that you're golden."

"I love all of it. Thank you /so/ much. This has really shed a lot of light," Peter grinned, "Can I hug you?"

"I love hugs!" Rachel beamed brightly as she stood up and went around the desk to give Peter a big hug, not squeezing him too tightly but securely. "Yay! I got a Peter hug!" She grinned brightly. "My first one I'm so happy."

Peter laughed, "You're welcome. I'll give you more, then, in the future."

Rachel's eyes crinkled around the corner, truly lighting up as if Peter just gave her the best gift in the world. "I'll be sure to hug you more often too." She promised him as she went back to sit down.

Bria leaned up and kissed Remus' jaw, "Be honest with the cards." With that she scooted off of him.

Remus smiled, albeit nervously as he got up. He'd get her back for the kiss after the reading. "Now we get Moony." Rachel grinned as he sat down in front of her.

Sirius perked, not only because it was his best friend's reading, but because he saw something for the first time. Rae's eyes light up like she was truly enjoying herself. She'd been happy during the date, but this was something she was passionate about.

Remus noticed the perked up expression on Sirius' face, but it seemed that Rae missed it. “It appears so,” He said as he picked up the cards and began shuffling. His mind was firm, he didn’t want to do too much with personal issues as he was fairly certain that time will help him solve it. However, he wouldn’t deny some help in a different emotional way. He handed the cards back and Rachel did a backwards L shape.

“Okay, right now you’re uptight.” She said after a moment of looking at the spread with a thoughtful expression on her face. “You haven’t taken any kind of break and it’s starting to wear down on you mentally. You need to actually step away from the books and destress yourself. If you have to, actually do some “me” time. Things you want to do rather than anything else.”

“I get a feeling you’re tearing my family apart.” James complained.

“No you’re just stressful.” Rachel grinned at James’ glare. “It’s true, you’re really energetic and a lot of people can’t keep up with your energy. Hell, after spending a day with Bria I knock myself out.”

Remus laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, so then what?”

“Well you might want to raise your standards a bit. I don’t mean raise them to be studious or anything like that. Just…remind people that you’re a bit of an introvert and you need some time to reenergize since this year is going to be filled with a lot of stress. You have future careers and you have O.W.L.S which is going to suck terribly and you have to worry about Christmas and what to buy for people. All in all, your friends need to know that you have rules about communication and hanging out. Apply them sometimes.”

“I do forget to tell them,” Remus mused. “But then again, I’m always tired so it’s not going to matter much.”

“Mental health is important, I don’t care if that makes me a quaked up hippy.” Rachel said stubbornly making Remus laugh. “Now the the card that’s going to influence this spiritual progression is getting to know your inner power. That might actually mean you need to talk to Moony.” Remus looked at her incredulously. “Wolves thrive on communication and since you’re a werewolf you need to apply that knowledge. You need to understand him and you need to start thinking the way he thinks. Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to control him once we leave seventh year and it’s going to cause problems. You’re attached to a pack, which is good for a wolf of any kind, but you don’t know that you not Moony, are alpha in this relationship.”

“How do you know so much about werewolves?” Remus asked curiously.

“I read.”

“I highly doubt you found all the information in a book.” Remus frowned. “I’ve scoured the Hogwarts Library for information and the most I get is horrible stories. It doesn’t help that we’re learning about them in D.A.D.A”

“You’re looking at them from a magical standard rather than a muggle standard. Muggles might not be able to cast magic, but if you’re a muggle witch….you know animals like the back of your hand. If not animals, you know weather, you know plants, you know a lot of other things. Mine just happens to be wolves. I like wolves. I like studying wolves. You’re right though, a lot of my information doesn’t come from a book. So now the question is…” She turned to the spread. “What influences may hinder your progression. Which oddly enough is Peter’s greatest trait. You give too much benefit of the doubt. You see people as kind and good and you don’t really see that every one regardless of house has a hidden dark side and you don’t see that it can and maybe will be used against you.”

Remus frowned deeply at the message that she was giving him. He didn’t say anything as she went down the long side of the L. “But while you have that benefit of the doubt problem, you forgot what it’s like to actually let go. You’ve been carrying the world on your shoulders for so long you don’t know how to put it down and not feel like everything is a responsibility. You’re fifteen, not twenty-five Remus. You need to start thinking like a teenager and let go of a lot of adult responsibilities. Yes you’re werewolf. Yes you’re madly dangerous. But I swear to whatever god you believe, Remus, that if I find out what you do during the full moon is locking yourself away, I’m going to be the first one unlocking that door and I’m going to let you loose in the forest.”

“Are you mad?” Remus snapped his head towards Rachel. “You wouldn’t do that. That’…that will kill someone. I could kill you.”

“Not with the potion recipe Eri has for that perfume you won’t.” Rachel pointed out.

“What if you don’t have an animal scent to hide behind? Eri even said that there are some people that the perfume won’t affect. You could be one of them.”

“Oh no, what a tragedy, what ever will I do.” Rachel deadpanned. “Not lock myself up when I deserve a bit of fun here and there.”

“You and Sirius…” Remus tossed his hands up in the air.

“I could always study to be an animagus will that comfort you?” Rachel teased.

Remus groaned. “Sirius is a bad influence on you.”

“No, this isn’t Sirius speaking.” Remus wanted to groan louder, thinking that she was doing a pun. “This is me worried about you.” He peeked at her from in between his hands that covered his face. He sighed as he let them drop. “Continue…”

“Considering this is the Laughter card, I’m going to determine that the person whose going to really going to impact you on your journey is going to be your friends. James a little more, but Sirius and Peter most definitely.” Rachel pointed at the last card. “Now you just need to figure out how to harmonize yourself with your wolf and them harmonize yourself with your friends and family. It’s nice being Remus, and having yourself separate from the wolf. But in the end, Rem, you /are/ Moony. It’d be nice of you to at least listen to him and understand him. That way you’ll be able to be with your friends without feeling like you have to be separate from them. And it’ll help with your up coming relationship.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Eh.” Rachel made face. “Maybe not.”

"Oh, come on, I'm not /that/ bad," Bria grinned, "Don't worry about me, Rae. I am rather enjoying hearing everyone else. You gave me one for my birthday that morning, anyway, so it's not like I need a second one. You don't need to do Remus and I both, either! I like the mystery," she wiggled her fingers, "Besides," she winked, "I'd rather not drain /myself/." Since she'd do her own reading with Rem. Not that they knew that yet.

"Aw, I like reading for you." Rachel pouted a little. "You make my faeries sing. Alright then, whose next?" She eyed Sirius a little hesitantly. Would he even /want/ to be read for? Would it be awkward? "You don't....have to if you don't want to Sirius."

"Oh, I want to. I can't watch the others have so much fun and then not participate!" Sirius grinned widely at her and he shooed Remus back towards Bria, "I agree with her about you being honest with yourself and not acting like a mother hen," he teased.

"Hush, get your reading." Remus gently shoved him back towards the desk and sat down next to Bria. He was honestly curious to see what kind of spread Rae would do for him. She handed the deck to Sirius and blinked when he barely shuffled. "Okay then." She laughed.

"They felt fine as they were," Sirius shrugged, "I know that's how this is working, by what feels right. They've been moved plenty by the others and then you putting them back."

The spread that she did was little strange. The top of the spread was scattered in a weird pattern and then went to a straight down arrow. It could look like a castle, or even the feathers on an arrow’s body. “Okay.” She paused as she looked at the spread. “James, Peter, Rem, now you. Why are you four always getting the laughter card?! The same position every time! Anyway, laughter. You heard me talk about it. This is where you are currently.” She tapped at the card. “You’re having a good time, it’s filled with joy and like the card says laughter. You’re surrounded by good things.”

"What can I say? We're a laughing bunch," Sirius grinned widely, "That's awesome, really. What's next?"

“Well, we get to this card,” She pointed to the top of the beginning of the arrow’s body. It was an upside down faery that held a spear. “You don’t stand up for what you believe in. You’re timid not to stand behind what you’re really feeling. You’re honest with yourself, but you don’t move with it. You don’t take action with it.” She paused as she looked at the third card, the one that acted like the top of the feather. “That may be due to your family harmony being in discord.” She recalled the dream that he had of his brother giving him a quill and how his mother took it and shattered. “You don’t have a good family life, and therefore you don’t want to lose anything that resembles family to you. So you temper down your feelings. You do it with your family too since you’re afraid. Therefore it gives your family a chance to walk all over you and think that you won’t do anything. You might have to.”

Peter's eyebrows shot up to his hairline at that revelation and looked at James. Sirius always seemed to speak his mind around them. Was that not his true self? Did he have to bite his own words to Remus? Sirius' smirk had faded and his lips were in a thin line, eyes sad and a bit shamed.

James was even looking a bit confused. That....didn't sound like Sirius, but at the same time, it did. James was fully aware of what went on in Grimmuald place, mostly because Sirius wasn't afraid to rant to him about it. He glanced over at Rem and he wondered how much of the pain the werewolf knew, and he wondered, exactly, what was happening behind closed mansion doors.

Remus also felt...well...not much confused as he did sad. Sirius was probably holding back a lot of pain, a lot of anguish that he didn't want to burden his friends with. It broke his heart thinking that he failed as a good friend. That he didn't see that he was suffering, too focused on his own.

Rachel watched as everyone fell silent at the reading and she continued, taking a deep breath. She gestured to the next card, which was pink and had a cluster of faeries holding to each other in comfort. “Dreams Coming True.” “Considering the discord and feeling like you can’t speak up, you feel like your hopes and dreams don’t matter. You feel like them manifesting is just a fairytale and you should give up. You’re afraid to hope and dream as well because you know that it can be taken away from you as fast as it can appear.”

"Merlin fuck," Remus whispered softly as he listened to the reading. James paled and his expression turned solemn and sad too. This...wasn't the kind of reading James hoped Sirius to have. He really, really prayed that this was going to turn around somehow.

Bria nuzzled Remus' chest in comfort briefly before looking back at Sirius. He was staring at the cards, but he didn't look surprised by any of this. After the first card, he'd gone completely mute, expression not changing. The cards could bring out ugly truths about a person they could either deny or agree to. Sirius was certainly agreeing, just not outwardly. As long as he got through this, he'd be okay.

She continued, pointing at the next card in the feather’s spread. The card was of a unicorn rearing up with a rainbow behind it.  “Disappointing really that you got my favorite card and yet it’s upside down. Due to everything that’s happening, you’re unable to relax and let loose as much as you want to. You tend to look over your shoulder a bit, and hold your breath.” She took a deep breath and then pointed at the body of the arrow. “First thing you have to do is drop the toxic family members. It’s going to be hard, and it may even lead to something that you don’t want to face. However, if you want to move forward and you want to start coming in to your own, you have to figure out a way to detox your environment. Leaving, telling people off, whatever.”

The first reaction since the second card was Sirius took a deep breath through his nose, eyes widening just a little bit. Bria narrowed her eyes a little bit at him. It was too quiet in the room, damn it, but it brought out things...she could See it. His thoughts. "He wants to. Leave, I mean. He's thought about it a lot." She watched his head snap up and pale green eyes met dark silver, "I know why he hasn't. It might be in your cards, it might not. Keep going."

No one really knew how to react to that. Remus figured that Bria had meant herself when she said that she was the second Seer, but…whoa. James looked at her surprised and looked over at Sirius, just seeing the expression on his friend’s face was enough to confirm that Bria just read his mind. “Telepathy?” James asked after a moment. The glares he got from everyone else was enough for him to put his hands up. “I’ll ask later.”

Sirius was more than creeped out by the dark, knowing smirk on Bria's face and he shrunk back in his chair, looking at Rae with a nod that it was okay for the next card.

“Of all the timings,” Rachel sighed, pinching her nose. She coughed and looked back at the cards. “Well, there’s a reason as to why you’re about to.” She looked at Sirius as solemnly as she could. “You probably already have a plan, but what’s going to trigger you running away is that all the pieces are going to come together. You’re going to let go all of the doubts and all of the hopes that you had. Something is going to make you realize that you’re not a “Black” in the way your family wants you to be. You’re already not, but it’s going to hit deeper than just House.” She pointed at the next card, which was Faery that looked like a Knight. “What you can do, is keep someone who you love in your corner. This card usually means a get-away, a date, things like that. I’m going to go ahead and say that you want to use them as a stone. Know that they’re supporting you. If you need a distraction, let them know. If you want to do something to get your minds off things, let them know. Also, take the time to enjoy your freedom and do things with them you never thought possible. At the same time, let them help you when you start to feel overwhelmed. Let them be your leash when you feel like the world gets too big.”

Sirius eyed her with curiosity, and maybe a little bit of hope, but a touch of skepticism. If her life was shit, too, then how would she support him when she couldn't support herself? Sure there was that whole 'they could lean on each other', but they'd be doomed to die in a leaking boat with just themselves. Unless their friends were there to save them both?

"We would be," Bria answered his thoughts, looking at her nails, "This isn't the movie Titanic. You're not a tragic love story."

"Stop it." Sirius deadpanned.

"Oh, he can speak," she drawled.

"Please, give me the next card. This suspense is killing me," Sirius begged Rae.

“Better Titanic than fucking Romeo and Juliet. I’m not stupid enough to drink a poison and then murder myself.” Rachel pursed her lips together to hide her laughter and began the next card. “So, what’s going to confirm that this is a good direction for you is that you’re going to compare and contrast.” She pointed at another scratch art Faery that was a baby and a mother who were having fun. “You’re going to look at the family you’re staying with and how they treat their kids and then you’re going to look at how your parents treated you and your brother. Since this card is upright, I’m going to say you found yourself a good, nontoxic family. A good loving family that will welcome you with open arms.” She pointed at the last card which was a Faery shining above a bright light. “Financial Flow”  “Sadly everything comes with a price. You will be denied your inheritance. You’re going to be denied a home. You’re going to be denied a lot of things that you once took for granted.”

Sirius didn't want to look at the one person out of all of them that came to mind. He knew /he/ knew, but it was still on his mind. Whether or not he'd go through with it was up in the air. "I'm aware it'd come with a price. I know I'd be taken care of, though. That's what matters, right?"

"To me yes," Rachel smiled as she gathered up the cards and placed them back in her deck. "I'm sorry that was a hard reading."

"Do tell the rest of the class now, then," Peter looked at Bria, "Why hasn't he left?"

"His brother." Bria arched a brow, "He doesn't want to essentially abandon him."

Sirius' jaw dropped, "How did you...?"

"Rae told me about Regulas," Bria shrugged.

"Marcus might be able to give you information," Sirius said slowly, "He's told me Regs looks up to him as a mentor of sorts."

"If you don't want me to meet him, I won't." Rachel gently assured him. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

James turned to Bria, "So is it telepathy or are you really that good at solving puzzles?"

"You did mention that there was a second Seer in our group," Remus concurred with James' statement. "But you said that it didn't happen often enough..."

"No, I don't have telepathy. I can't read your minds," Bria explained to James first, "I /do/ have..."

"Empathy. Bugger all, I forgot you told me that," Sirius muttered.

“That’s interesting.” James looked at Bria interestedly. It was probably another reason why Bria didn’t want Rae to do anything with her cards. Forget her birthday, she might accidentally influence Rae with her abilities. “So you…feel people out?”

"It doesn't make sense for the Titanic reference you made, though!" Sirius countered.

"I suppose that's where Remus' answer comes in," Bria said slowly, "I saw a picture in my mind as I observed you and Rae. I saw a boat with you two in it and it was sinking." She pulled herself away from Remus and stretched, "I do feel people out. Sometimes I combine my observation skills with what feel. That's how the pictures come. Which..." she looked down at her love interest, "...is why I told you it doesn't happen often enough for me to be sure. I always feel like it's a fluke and not real, just my imagination as a reader and a writer coming into play."

Rachel shivered. She had enough death-dreams. She didn't need to have one handed to her about drowning. She put her cards away in her small box and stayed silent while everyone else were focused more on Bria. Remus blinked. "I bet you're a good writer with that kind of imagery. That's strong visualization."

"Sorry, Rae," Bria said softly, before she smiled at Remus, "I'll have to show you my journals I use for writing my rough drafts. Sometimes Rae and I combine dreams we have and write together. It's an outlet."

"That's a fantastic outlet," Peter was excited, "I'd love to see your works, too! I could draw for you."

Bria's eyes widened like saucers, "I...that's...you don't have to..."

Rachel clapped her hands excitedly. "If we show you our books, do we get to see your drawings?! Oh that's fantastic! I bet you're really good!" She wanted to bounce up and down from excitement. "Ah I'm so excited!"

James stared at her for a bit before turning to Sirius. "Have you ever thought that she might be a bunny?"

"She's rather twitchy and hard to catch," Sirius mused, "That would be adorable."

"Rae with bunny ears!" Bria squealed, "I can see it!"

"Maybe you're not human, then!" Peter howled.

"So," Bria giggled softly as their laughter died out and she reached into her sweater jacket pocket. She pulled out a box that was gold and brown and yellow making up two faces on the front, and in the center was blue and a rising angel smack in the middle. "Healing with the Angels" was written in white above the angel.

"AAAAHHH YOU BROUGHT YOUR CARDS!" Rachel shouted excitedly.

"Oh my god." James cracked up. "It's like we're making Rae's day without /even/ doing anything. It's almost amazing how she goes from mopey and distant to nearly bouncing off the walls in a minute." He turned to Bria. "So what does /that/ deck do?"

"Now /these/ are Angel cards. The angels speak to you. Or rather through you to me. They're...just a tiny bit evil in the fact they can just throw cards at me, like 'read me!'. It's not a fluke. They always mean something," she stressed, "I told Remus on my birthday about them, and also told him that one time I had twenty cards."

"Oh god that reading," Rachel snorted. "That poor girl never stood a chance with that deck."

"Twenty cards." James stared at her like she just told him that she flew off the roof. "Wow...can a reading get that high?"

"The meaning and relativity of the cards gets screwed if there's that many, yes," Bria nodded, "So I try to keep it low. I'm not the best at spreads, but I'll try. I honestly, usually just wing it."

"I'm game to know how you'll do the spreads." James said with genuine curiosity. "What order should we go in?"

"I had Rae give me a list of a few good spreads to try out when she did mine before," Bria fished into her pocket again for a piece of parchment, "It doesn't matter. Whoever sits in the chair first?" she challenged, "Remus last, though, because he's the original reason why they're out to play."

"I'll pass to make it easier on you. I got all the information I want," Peter waved his hand.

Sirius looked at James.

"I guess I go first again," James laughed as he sat down in front of Bria. "So, what do I got to do for your cards? Shuffle?"

"Ooooh, I know just what spread to do for you. Okay, so. I do things differently than Rae. I have you shuffle, then I split the deck in two. Then you hover your dominant hand over both and tell me which one feels warmer. Does that make sense?" Bria was giddy. She shuffled hers a little bit to wake them up, fanning them twice. When she was done she handed them to him.

James shuffled the deck and handed it to her. She split into two and he pointed at the right. Once she picked the deck up, she started to spread them out in a very interesting manner. Four of them were in a row, and then she stopped and spread them out another four from top to bottom. Then she placed a single card beside the up and down row. "Interesting.."

"It's called the Crossroads...I hope I did this right," Bria took a deep breath, "You also have one wild card here, in my hand. Do you want to see it now or after?"

"After." James nodded and scooted closer. "Don't worry, I won't judge you for a spread. Really you should do what you want with your cards. But read away."

"I'm really happy. You only have three upside down wings," Bria smiled after studying them. "Okay...okay...First iiisss...." she reached over to the far left side and turned it. "Oh my Goddess, you have my favorite!" she was giddy, "The Guardian Angel...well done." It was a red card with a crying girl sitting in an overgrown building with red flowers, an angel that looked like a ghost because it was transparent was reaching out to the girl, "This is the Past card in reference to the spread. So you've never been alone your whole life, or at least never felt like you were alone."

It was a beautiful card and it made James a little happy and sad to see the child crying. He hated it when kids cried, it broke his heart. "That is true," He never felt alone. If he wasn't with his friends, he was with his family. Even when he was alone with his thoughts, he knew he wasn't actually alone.

"My cards don't need to be long an involved unless you feel the need to talk about it," Bria smiled, "To the point, they are. Next is the Present and the card is..." she turned it slowly, and then made a 'huh' sound, "Dreams..." it was a sienna red-brown card that had the textured of a folded blanket on the rim, and the center was a blond woman asleep on some pillows, reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty some would think. "This usually means you are receiving important messages in your dreams and to pay attention to them. However, I could deduce that in reference to the spread, your dreams are coming true."

James grinned brightly at that. "That's awesome." So maybe everything would work out after all.

"It's looking good for you so far," Sirius was happy for James.

"I dunno...the next one is the Obstacle and it's an upside down wing," Bria hummed, flipping it, "Negative Celebration..." she furrowed her brows. It was a burgundy card wit an angel standing on grass with a lake and the night sky, reaching up towards the moon. "So she is telling you...that while your dreams are coming true...maybe you're taking them for granted. Perhaps you think things are easy for you, so you're neglecting to actually nurture the fruits of your labor. Perhaps this is telling you to take into account not everything will be handed to you on a silver platter."

James frowned. It was true that he probably didn’t think about it, and it was true that he didn’t think much about other people and their standing. He was more mindful of his friends, but even then…he wasn’t aware of Sirius. He wasn’t aware of Remus and his needs. Peter…Maybe he needed to step back. Maybe actually not do something rather than always taking action. Or take action in a different way.

"I'll say again I'm not used to spreads, so tell me if it doesn't feel right," Bria shifted with a frown.

"No that...that works. Keep going." James urged.

Relieved, she nodded, "The last one to the fork in the road is...My my, what do we have here?" she picked it up to have him look at it closer, "Miracles do happen," she winked. It was a lovely card with a fairy printed texture on the rim, in the middle a black haired angel wit darkness surrounding her holding her finger out for a tiny light fairy to land on it.

"What exactly does that mean though?" James asked with a furrowed brow. "Like does that mean that...everything's going to be okay?" He wasn't sure of the meaning. Miracles were good, but after the last card...he worried about what it stood for for him.

Bria giggled, "It /means/ she's telling you not to get your hopes up. Think of Rae's Opportunity card. That's what this is. Be open to listening for the knock on your door. This is the /Tips/ spot in the spread."

"I gotcha..." James nodded.

"Okay, before I continue, I'm going to tell you each of these have a question associated with it. A is Confront - do you deal with the issue immediately?" she pointed at the very top card, the one closest to him, and proceeded down from there, "B is Prepare - Do you research the issue before you confront it? C is Opt Out - Is it better for someone else to confront the issue? D is Disengage - do you leave things alone?" she tapped on the one closest to her. Funny how both the top and bottom ones were negative wings.

"Do I choose one or are you going to flip all four of them and I base my answer around that?" He asked curiously.

"The last card is the outcome of the best option suggested," Bria shrugged, "I could flip them all if you'd like or do one at a time. What do you want?"

"Um, let's go with confront and prepare." James nodded. "I don't want to disengage and I don't want anyone else to solve my problem."

"Okay," Bria flipped the cards he referenced, "Negative Focus and Positive Nature..." Focus had an odd rim with a short haired brunette angel that had a flower crown of white roses in her lap, looking off to the side like she was drawn to something, "She's telling you you're thoughts are scattered. You aren't thinking about the bigger picture well enough to face it properly." Nature was a pink and green rim with an angel walking through the forest coming to a road, "She's a literal one. She's telling you to spend some time outside in the gardens by yourself to mull things over, as this is the Prepare card as well. Just take your time and go over everything in your head. Connect with the nature magic. It's soothing and calming."

"Huh..." James hummed. He could guess that his focus would be else where or be focusing on the wrong thing. Sirius might have a hot-temper, but James knew that he let his worries carry off with him. Nature on the other hand. A walk never sounded awful. "I don't know nature magic, but...I can try."

"Are you curious about the others? Or do you want to go right to the last card?" Bria grinned.

"Last card." James said firmly.

"Surrender and Release," Bria 'awed'. It had a green rim that had an almost block-like texture to it, with a brunette woman with green eyes holding a leaking vase that had a crack on it's side, her wings were the stain glass window behind her instead of real wings. "I love this one as well. The direct meaning for this is - Everything that you release will either be replaced by something better or will be returned to you healed. She's telling you to let go. Don't try to control the outcome, just let it happen and things will be okay."

"So prepare to let go." James nodded. "That sounds like it's going to be really hard. But, I bet it's going to be worth it." He took a breath. "For a first spread, this was really good Bria."

"You still have your wild card. Do you want to know what it is? Or put it back?" Bria held up the card she'd set aside.

"....Sure." James couldn't help but to want to know. "What is it?"

Bria actually laughed a little when she saw it, "Rae, look," she waved her friend over who'd gone to sit by Sirius. It was the Listening card, that had a crystal texture in a blue color for the rim, a blond woman looking up at a blond angel, and it looked like a watercolor painting.

Rachel walked over and peered over James' shoulder to see the card that was lying in the middle of the desk. She laughed and James couldn't help but to think that this was going to be bad. "Oh...wow."

"That card means what it says. Listening. You've been receiving messages and this is validation you've been paying attention and you hear them. Trust your gut and what they're saying," Bria nodded happily. She gathered all the cards up and took a relieving breath. "That wasn't a very big spread but it was intense, wasn't it?"

"It was..." James shook his head. "I have a lot to think about and go after." He smiled at her gently. "Still though, you did really good at reading the spread. It's valuable information."

"Whose next?" Rachel asked curiously. "Rem? Sirius?"

"I don't want to do it by myself again, not after Milady's," Sirius shook his head.

"Then I could do both you and Rae, if it makes you feel better," Bria assured, "I think I know what I'd do, too. Rae, do you want to go first, though?"

"Together or me first?" She decided to turn to Sirius and see what he wanted. If he wanted a break and have her go first then that was fine, but she wanted to know, just so she wouldn't accidentally hurt him.

"You go first. I want to see what you get," Sirius smiled at her, "Then we can do it together. You were all excited before when she revealed them."

Rachel nodded and took a breath as James got out of the seat and sat down in front of her. She shifted to be more comfortable and held her hand out for the deck. "Ready when you are."

"Okay, Rae," Bria had a weird set up. To Rae it would look like an L. Then off to the side was a negative card on top of three positive ones, "Two negative and we both know what the one is, because there's no hope for it. I /also/ have four wild cards. I want to read you the wild ones first."

Rachel nodded, "Go for it."

"The negative one, just to get the nasty boggart out of the way," Bria picked it up, hearing Remus snort in the background, "Divine Timing? Ooooh wait. Right. You're overwhelmed and you're rushing, forcing open doors to see what's behind them. You should go through the ones that are already open instead of the ones that are locked. They're locked for a reason."

In other words, don't try to force an issue or try to get answers for things unless offered. Don't try to do something stupid like push the relationship that's barely blooming too. Maybe she shouldn't go see Regulus after all, and just leave it alone. She nodded. "Okay."

Bria didn't do a one-by-one for the wild positive ones, and she swelled with pride, "New Beginnings, New Love, and Blessings. You have a clean slate, Rae. New opportunities, people, and projects. Isn't that wonderful? You will want to cling to old routines but don't do it. Embrace this new happiness you've found. You know that means the same for New Love. My Angels Bless you with their love and guidance right now, they haven't abandoned you. Take it or leave it."

Remus watched in high amusement as Rachel's expression turned from serious to shock. She looked like she was vibrating or trying to hold back a lot of her emotions. Those were...beautiful cards for her. Remus glanced over at Sirius and just knew that his best friend was the whole reason why those three cards even appeared. If anyone was a wild card in itself, it was Sirius.

"Don't cry now," Sirius cooed, reaching over and gently brushing her arm with the back of his hand.

"I'm about to," Rae admitted as she covered her eyes with her arm. She took in a few deep breaths and let her arm fall down. "Okay..." She nodded at Bria to start the true reading, her heart thudding hard against her chest.

"First card is Overall current state...ha, you have a positive Celebration this time around," Bria laughed, "You've been working towards making changes and they're not in vain. Keep tending those seeds and they'll grow to be beautiful." She went right on to the next one, "Factors you've forgotten...you got the music card upside down. She's telling you to add more of it into your life."

"So find the music room and play piano more," and sing. Rachel recalled that Remus was a player too, and Sirius a guitar player. They probably knew where the music room was so that she could begin again.

"That sounds like fun. Several of us need to cut loose anyway," Sirius nodded excitedly.

"Music recital, that should be fun." James agreed.

Bria grinned and she skipped the corner card in favor of the second negative one, "This is the House card. So this is the second time your cards are opposite James. Upside down Surrender and Release. I'm sorry, love." She didn't need to explain this one. If James' meant letting go that things would be healed...for her, it meant letting go wouldn't change a damn thing, and that was a topic better left in the privacy of their own inner circle, "Let's lighten that up with Mates, hmm?"

When she flipped it Sirius winced and reeled back when Bria squealed loudly only to cover her mouth to muffle it.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" Peter demanded, swallowing the oreo he'd been eating.

"I'm /so/ sorry! She got Archangel Michael!" Bria was bouncing so hard in her chair it was coming off the floor in little click-clacks, "Ok, ok, I think of this as both /Mates/ and friendship because it is /supposed/ to be friendship, but wolf-stuff and the like makes it romantic. This is beautiful!" she waved to Peter who just stared at her before uncertainly giving her an oreo. Stuffing it in her mouth, it was just enough to make her calm down. When she could speak she explained it, "Archangel Michael is the symbol of courage, and he's a warrior. With him in this spot it means as Rae is making these changes in her life, and as she encounters challenges, she will be safe and secure."

"I don't think I ever seen you actually bounce around like a cat before." Rachel laughed, but she couldn't help to fill a bit of pride at seeing the card. Courage and security. She was going to be fine.

Remus grinned at the sight, enjoying how Bria just lit up and bounced around like a carefree child. It brought him a lot of joy to see her so excited. He didn't say anything, but he couldn't help but to feel like her energy was contagious.

"Okay, okay, okay, now for the /loooooove/ card," Bria drawled, batting her eyes at Rae before laughing and turning it, "Awwww. How to improve your love is to have Balance. She's telling you to moderate everything. Little bit of this, little bit of that. Do what he wants, do what you want." She giggled and flipped the last card, "The spiritual card is Emerging. That's just perfect. Your true self is coming out. Embrace it, Rae. It's inspiring."

"It's the coming of age ceremony I think so far everyone got something like that in my readings." Rae would have to keep in mind about the balance and try not to over throw it too much.

"Last card! What is it?!" Sirius demanded, impatient.

Laughing, Bria turned it. "Trust. The Outcome of improving all of this is Trust. Believe in yourself. You've been disappointed before, but it won't be like that this time."

Rachel let out a slow breath and shook her head. "My biggest issue is the outcome to all of this." She smiled. "It is worth the try considering all the good things."

"That was some reading," James turned to Remus. "I seriously though that Bria was going to knock over the chair when she saw the Archangel card."

"They both deserve some goodness." Sirius to decide about what he needed to do to get away from his home. Rachel needing to take a leap of faith and fall forward. Remus could tell that their issues resided a lot in the homestead...Rae had looked a little broken hearted when she saw that even letting go and hoping for the best wouldn't heal the wounds that were in her home. "It seems to me that Sirius is a good influence."

"Maybe she can support him after all," James agreed as he watched Sirius take a seat next to Rae to do the next reading.

Bria took a breath as she shuffled the deck, then had them chose what side they wanted. They shuffled, and then she placed them in what looked like an X, "I have two wild cards from your deck, Sirius, but we'll get to those later. Okay. First is how you two view yourselves. Rae's, yours is Soulmate. Your heart yearned for a big love and you feel like it was granted. Sirius, yours is Playfulness. You're always excited and enjoy playing. At least that's on the outside."

"You are playful." Rachel grinned at the card that represented Sirius. Always ready with a witty comment and boundless energy. Him and Bria probably represented the "Playful" card well. "Like a pup."

"Aw," James grinned. "Puppy Sirius that's cute."

Remus snorted imagining Sirius with a dog's tail and ears. "Well his name is Black Dog literally."

"I never realized that." James cracked up. "Oh my god it does!"

"Padfoot!" Sirius wrinkled his nose, "I'm Padfoot! Now shooosh!"

Bria shook her head but continued, "Next is how you view each other. Sirius you see her as Serenity. Someone who's peaceful and who would calm you. Rae, you see him as Ideas and Inspiration. I mean, I think that's self-explanatory. You /did/ write him the first love letter that started your back and forth."

Rachel looked over at Sirius, "Do you see me like that?"

Sirius' face heated, "I might. You may have bright hair but you usually look really tranquil. It's just the vibe I get I guess."

Rachel's expression was shocked and then a pink twinge was on the edge of her cheek bones as she turned back to the spread, unable to think of anything to say for that.

"This is..." Bria referred the the parchment she had, "How you view the relationship. Rachel you have....Enchantment. Hey, it's your mirror card in my deck! Awwww," she cooed.

Sirius noticed this card wasn't as cartoonish as Rachel's, but it was of a unicorn. What were the chances that the mirror sisters would have mirror cards? "That's lovely. What's it mean in yours, though?"

"Rapture and awe," Bria nodded, "This means she views the relationship with a sense of wonder. Now you....have the Romance card. Of course," she snickered, "You view the relationship as you've found a wonderful partner to be a total sap with."

"Accurate," Sirius' cheeks were red, thinking about the letters.

Rachel wanted to cover her face with her hands, but allowed her blush to grace her cheeks even more vibrant. They did pass along cheesy and somewhat romantic letters. Sometimes, when she had a bad night of not being able to sleep, just rereading them was a comfort. "It's not every day a good looking person does his hardest to woo you and actually takes you for a courtyard date."

"It's not every day you let them," Bria countered.

"If you can say no to Sirius, I will be shocked. The only one that's managed so far is Lily." James admitted.

"If anyone can say no to either you or Sirius have more will-power." Remus agreed.

Bria snickered and glanced back at Remus, "Eh, I'm perfectly alright with my wolf," she hummed and then tapped on the next cards, "Now these, even if they came from your individual decks, I feel like they're interchangeable not one or the other. You tell me if I'm right or wrong." She flipped them, "These are what you desire from each other but can't give. At least for the moment. Negative Support and Negative Healing. Neither of you would be able to hold the other up right now. Healing is telling you that situations that have caused you concern are /not/ on the mend. Those are deep issues, though."

Rachel blanched at the negative support. Sure, the healing wasn't going to happen. Sirius needed to get away from his family before any wounds would heal. Her wounds though...everything was on the mend in her other reading right? Stay positive? Trust her friends and the person in her corner? She pursed her lips together. Or was it more or less her physical wounds? Would she get stronger spiritually, but the price for it was to weaken physically and mentally? Could that /even/ be considered a price?

But support...she liked to think herself as being supportive. Maybe it was Sirius who could do it? It'd make sense...again his home life being awful and he had his own plans and his own worries to focus about.

"I'm not sure how to feel about that," Sirius shook his head.

"Not everything is set in stone. This is just a guide. I was waiting for something to fuck up eventually," Bria admitted.

"What else does the cards say? We still have wild cards to contend with." Rachel reminded gently.

"The Theme of this relationship is..." Bria giggled after she turned it, "New love."

"Repeats happen a lot more often in your deck," Peter observed.

"I have forty-four cards, so I expect it," she shrugged, "There's several that haven't made themselves known, though. Anyway, you two are both new to this. Take your time but treasure it. I think we can both agree that's awesome, right?" she smiled and reached for the last card, "The direction you two need to take is...Truth and Integrity. You need to be true to yourself, and if something isn't working, be willing to let it go."

"Communication is key." Rachel repeated a well-worn mantra that Bria and Eri had been drilling into her since first year.

"We've talked about that already so that's good," Sirius nodded, "Thank you so much, Bria. This was great," he watched her put away her cards and stood up. When Rae got up as well, he pulled her close into a side-hug and kissed her cheek, "I think we can do it, how about you?"

"We've talked about that already so that's good," Sirius nodded, "So what are the Wild Cards?"

Bria hummed and put the others away, keeping the random two. "They're both negative...ah, this one is Emerging. Basically you're not true to yourself but we've covered that. The other one is Power. You're afraid of your power and that you're a powerful person. Is it because the rest of your family is Slytherin?"

Sirius was surprised at that, and he glanced away, "A bit, yes..."

"You don't want to be like them," Bria nodded solemnly, but then grinned, "Don't worry about it. If we have learned anything from this whole session is everything will be okay."

Now that Bria mentioned it, Rae thought back to the times where Sirius didn't use his wand for any of the magic that he did. They were rare times, but...he'd sometimes just disregard his wand and words. She was good at wordless magic, but she was no where nearly as powerful as to use wandless magic. Her power came in spurts, and violently. Was his wandless magic from his power of being a Black? If that was the case, then how exactly powerful could Sirius get? It was...both intriguing and sobering to realize this.

She stood up along with him and before he could do anything, she stood on her tippy toes since she was a lot shorter than he was, and placed a kiss against his cheek. He needed it after two hard readings and pulled him into a hug.

Sirius was surprised, but he got over it in a quick second, wrapping her up in his arms tightly. He just held her, taking a deep breath before letting it out slowly, feeling better. Pulling away he kissed her nose cutely, "Thank you, I love hugs, too."

"She's going to die from how often her cheeks turn red, Pads." Remus walked over to the table. He was a bit nervous. Rae's reading had been hard, and he didn't know what was going to happen to Bria's reading. "You might as well hold her and make sure she doesn't faint." He could hear her mutter a "oh my god..." under her breath. "Scoot."

"He has a point." James muttered as he sat down next to Peter and took a few oreos. It was a shame that the package was already almost gone. Thank god he had the foresight to actually buy three packages. Two of which hiding in the dorm room.

Bria blushed darkly as Remus sat in front of her. "I'm going to do an 8 card spread with us that will be similar to Sirius' and Rae's, but less complicated." She shuffled them once just to make sure they were mixed from what she put away, and then took a breath, "Now that the initial shuffle is done, I'm going to keep shuffling until you tell me to stop. Then whatever you chose from the split you get to shuffle until I say stop and I'll chose what you split."

Remus watched Bria shuffle for a moment, counting how many she did and said, “Stop.” She split it and he paused, looking at the decks that laid before him. “Left.” When she made no move to pick up the deck herself, he picked it up instead and started shuffling it. He counted and then handed it back to her. She split the deck once more.

Choosing the right side, she laid them all out in a very long spread that was like the crossroads one but one less on the end wings, but /just/ like the crossroads James had, there were two positive before a negative, and the end of the wings both had negatives. "Okay. First is how you view your partner. Mine." She flipped it and furrowed her brows, "Meditation?" she hummed as she stared at him before her eyes widened and she blushed darkly, "Oh. I suppose that makes sense...it means I see you like Sirius sees Rae. As a calming source. You ease my mind and help me think."

"It seems that I have my own mirror then." Remus smiled. He was glad that he was someone who was calm and grounding for her. Sirius had told him once that he was a soothing presence for him as well.

"Maybe it's not Rae that'll explode from the blood rushing to her face," Peter drawled with a smirk.

"I do...show my emotions outwardly a lot more than she does," Bria acknowledged, then cleared her throat, "Ahem...and this is how you view me..." She flipped it and immediately covered her face.

Sirius had to lean over and read it for her, but not before he cracked up, "Romance!"

Rachel covered her mouth as she let out a startled laugh. "Well, it's not wrong." She let her hand down and leaned a little against Sirius' as she watched the reading unfold. Mentally, she betted that there would be more mirrors involved with this reading than anything.

"I'm glad you see me like that...that I'm your heart's yearning," Bria murmured softly, but she bit her lip and reached for the third card, "This is my needs..." she informed, "Negative...Ideas and Inspiration," she actually lost her blush and turned sad.

"So since it's negative would it fall under the same lines as Peter's?" Sirius asked, figuring this would be a tough one and she needed help. The shock on Remus face made him wince, "You don't feel like you're able to express your true self very well?"

"Something like that," the brunette agreed, shifting in her seat.

"Awwwww, you're holding back!" Peter actually sounded like he was whining.

The minute she said that, Rae's eyes wandered like she was watching something move across the room. She paused for a moment, and then her head suddenly snapped back into place. It wasn't too quick that it'd bring attention, but it was enough to make it look like she was suddenly snapping out of a day dream. The thing she saw didn't make sense...not yet. But she had a feeling that this was going to be a reading revealing a vision.

"Well that's something that we can work on," James said encouragingly. "We just got to open you up a little more. That's all."

Remus felt...a little hurt that there was a possibility that she was holding herself back. But James was right, it was something that they could work on. "It'll take time." Remus assured. "But we'll get to that point."

"Okay," Bria smiled a bit lopsidedly, "I can be a bit impatient. I'm sure that's all it is." She didn't want to force anything. Never. Forcing someone to do something was always a bad thing. "Well, let's see your needs, then, hmm?" She flipped the fourth card at the end of the 'road', "Balance. I believe Rae covered this one. You need it in your life and you need to know how to do that."

Rae felt a twinge and recalled the flash that she just had. Oh..well..this could be bad. Remus nodded, solemnly. He was one for being able to get his school work done and have time to be with his friends. It'll take a bit of juggling to get Bria and his prefect duties in there somehow too. "Okay."

"The fifth card is the current state of the relationship," Bria felt her heart sinking further as she continued, reaching for the single card on her right, which was upside down. A deep frown formed as she saw it, "Negative Support...we really aren't holding each other up, are we?"

Just like that Rae understood the flash and the twinged feeling. Now it was coming together. But she held her tongue, waiting to see what the next card will be, just in case it'd change course. Remus on the other hand frowned deeply, but said nothing. It seemed like no one was good at supporting themselves or each other.

"I'm not liking this," Peter whispered to James, "Something tells me Bria and Remus are going to implode sooner rather than later while Poe and Sirius are going to be a slow spiral out of control and all we can do is watch."

James pursed his lips together. "I hate it say, but I think your right, wormy."

Bria moved on to the one beside it, "The sixth card is where I'd like this relationship to go. We need a happy one here, so this is good," she smiled in just a small bit of relief, and then gasped when she saw it. "He sure has faith in our relationships, doesn't he, Rae?" it was Archangel Michael again.

Bria moved on to the one beside it, "The sixth card is where we'd like this relationship to go. We need a happy one here, so this is good," she smiled in just a small bit of relief, and then gasped when she saw it. "He sure has faith in our relationships, doesn't he, Rae?" it was Archangel Michael again.

"Seven is where you'd like to see it go, Remus," Bria said as she kept going sideways, and swallowed hard, feeling tears prick, "Healing..."

"You are just as much of a sap as me," Sirius cooed.

"I just don't have your ability to write out inspired songs," Remus teased back at Sirius. He smiled, relieved that whatever hard ship that the relationship was going to face, there was going to be an out for it.

"Well that's something good though right? Know the intention and the rest doesn't matter right?" James asked hopefully. "You guys will be alright."

"Times three...you're worried we won't be," Bria looked back at James.

"Well...yeah." James frowned.

"Ay for me! For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history. The course of true love never did run smooth. But either it was different in blood, Too high to be entralled to low, or else misgraffed in respect of years, to old to be engaged to young or else it stood upon choice of friends, to choose love by another's eyes." Rachel quoted randomly, making James and everyone else turn to her. She was staring up at the ceiling now, her mind wandering in circles as she continued to piece together the flash. "Every love has a trial in order to go through to make it stronger, James."

"Where you quoting Shakespeare?" Remus asked, looking at Rachel with a complex expression. "Was that Midsummer Night's Dream?"

"It was and I hate myself for it." Rachel paused and looked at Bria and Remus. "You two should be even more careful than the lovers who's tales were written down."

Bria wrinkled her nose, "You're so Optimistic, arigato," she said sarcastically. She did and yet she didn't understand that particular quote. Maybe she would later...that was definitely a vision. Shaking her head, she took the cards from the split Remus made that she hadn't chosen, "Okay. Everyone had a wild card, but you didn't, so pick two," she demanded as she fanned them out in her hand.

"Okay," Remus said and carefully picked out two cards from her fan and laid them out on the table so that she could read them for him.

One was called body care, which...was an interesting card to see and get all at once. Children though...that wasn't something he was expecting.

Putting all other cards away, this time laying them into her box, she set it aside before she studied what he received. "Hmm. Children I can tell you she is saying to focus on your inner child. Ask him "How do you feel?" and "What would you like to do?" and I believe this coincides with Rae's reading about talking to Moony."

"I was wondering if your reading was going to bring him up," Remus nodded. He tapped on Body Care. "What exactly does that mean?"

"Now /this/," she reached out and took his hand, sliding up his sleeve and felt him tense as she traced what looked like wide-spread bite marks. At first glance you couldn't tell because they looked like a precision bite, and spread around his forearm. She'd seen them recently during Potions when he didn't want his uniform to burn, "Take care of your physical self, not just your spiritual self. Spirit is important, but what is a soul without a body to inhabit?"

"Ah understandable." He paused as she finally let his arm go and he moved it away. "Thank you for the reading. These were all good things to know."

()

"Where are you taking me?!" Sirius laughed as he stumbled again, "You're so excited!" Rae was dragging him behind her, almost running in the direction of the residential area of Hogsmeade. She'd split them off from Remus and Bria when they reached the fork in the road, a bounce in her step. It was the weekend so they didn't need permission slips to be there like Remus had done the first time.

"You have to guess." Rachel laughed as she tugged him again. She was wearing casual clothes with jeans and a black tight shirt. Her make up was mostly purple based, which had made Marcus call her the Purple Ghost when they ran into him during breakfast. "Come on, after this, you have to show me a place you like in Hogsmade." She was going to do what she could to switch the dates off and on. He did her a favor with the courtyard and she failed asking Peter for advice about where to go in Hogsmade. All she could do was hope for the best that Sirius wouldn't try to please her.

"I think I can agree to that," Sirius nodded and he had fun with the twists and turns to the houses, "I don't want to guess. Last time I hit the nail on the head Bria got all mopey. So I'll just let you surprise me. I like surprises." His own outfit was simple. Regular black slacks with scruffy 'sneakers' Remus had given him for Christmas last year, and a red t-shirt with a yellow stripe across the chest since the temperature was warm for a late October day Just in case it got cold or they were out late, he did have a Gryffindor sweater Molly had made him for Christmas as well wrapped around his waist.

They continued down until they reached a house with a beautiful iron fence. The house was a modest two story stoned house with light brown bright and a lovely A shaped roof. The house had a widow's peek that overlooked the small area. Rachel opened the gate and pushed it open gently dragging Sirius behind with her before closing it. The front yard was well taken care off, the garden in front was filled with blooming marigolds and some other autumn flowers. They reached the door and Rachel knocked a few times and stood back, folding her hands behind her back in nerves.

The door swung open after a moment and a tall man with blond hair that had brown roots, silver wings spreading from his temples back and scattered through his hair in streaks, looking a bit lopsided as it was a comb-over hairdo. His robes were a signifying black with gold trim, his shirt underneath yellow with black slacks and shoes. He beamed at Rae, golden brown eyes sparkling, "Goldie-Puff! It's been a while! I was wondering when you'd come see us since the new year started," he said cheerfully and he leaned down to pick her up in a big hug, taking her feet off the ground as he squeezed her and his cheek smushed against her head.

"Timothy!" Rachel cried out as she hugged him tightly. She could smell the lingering incense of vanilla and the strength of baked goods and some sort of pastry in the oven. "I missed you so much." She pulled away from him, grinning from ear to ear and holding on to him. "I tried to write as often as I could, I was moving around a lot this summer."

"That's alright. I understand," Timothy nodded.

"Timothy, as in Summerfield?" Sirius blinked rapidly, "I remember seeing you on the teacher history wall. Hufflepuff Professor?"

Tim looked at him with a tilt of his head, "Are you the Black boy I keep hearing around about? Yes I was a Hufflepuff Professor. Herbology before Miss Sprout took over."

"Oh wow, so you're good with plants," Sirius looked at the garden, "That explains."

"Sirius is a good friend of mine and probably more than that." Rachel explained. "I smell pastry. Is Mary in the kitchen? Can we say hi?"

"Oh, she must've finished the letter reply to little Miss Bria," Tim perked, "Wonderful! Yes, let's go say hello!" he motioned to them and placed his hand on Rae's back as he led them inside.

Sirius took note of how at home she felt here, moving around with ease like she lived there instead of only coming by occasionally. He decided to take a seat in one of the recliners while the other two coaxed out the wife. The surroundings were stunning and bright. Sun disks and other warm colors, such as browns, oranges, a few reds. Black was scarce unless it was an accent. Even the wood furniture was maple, a lovely bright brown shade. Mary must've been a Gryffindor. A flipped relationship of Raiden and Eri?

“I hear voices,” a lovely voice came through the kitchen. A plump witch appeared at the entrance way between the living room and the kitchen. Her hair was a gorgeous short brown with curls. Her face was kind and round and she wore an apron that had bits of flour. “Oh! /Goldie/!” She quickly rushed over to Rachel and patted her face before dragging her into a hug. “My god you are so thin child! Have you been eating?”

“As well as I have been.”

“Tut.” The woman clicked her tongue. “I knew I should have sent you a care package in September. Next time I fail to send you something like that, send me a howler. God knows that I deserve it!” She peered over Rachel’s shoulder. “Now whose the handsome devil sitting in the recliner dear? He’s a looker that one is.”

Sirius' face heated. He heard plenty of people say he was handsome, but something about this Mary woman saying it felt important. These people meant something to Rae. They were a family she didn't have at home. He stood back up and nodded his head respectfully to her, "Sirius Black, ma'am. Pleasure. I'm...Milady's boyfriend." This was their second date. He could call her that, right?"

"Aw, look, he's so bashful and he has manners!" Tim's face had a never-ending smile, it just either got further up which made his cheeks pop out or small and soft. "/Milady/, huh? That's one heck of a nickname, Goldie. I wonder what Miss Bria's nickname for you would sound like, though. Too bad you have such a ban on it."

“Is that the only thing you noticed?” Mary quipped back without much heat. “Goldie brought us her /boyfriend/ Timothy! Boyfriend! Finally!” She threw her hands up. “After hearing the disaster that was the first, I feared that Goldie was going to put a halt on her love life. Which is all fine and dandy considering you have O.W.L.S to look forward to, but that is no way how a teenager is supposed to be! Even Bria might’ve gotten her mixed into some dreadful blind dating shenanigans! Oh you can relax somewhat dear-heart. We’re not going to hurt you. Yet.”

“Mary!” Rachel stared at her aghast.

“If he’s dating you, he has to know that we’re willing to beat him off with a cane if he so much as hurts a hair on your head.” Mary told her seriously. “There’s a thousand of things I would like to do to your scum of a-“ She took a breath. “But that’s neither here nor there. Do you want tea Sirius? Something to eat? I have strudels and a cherry pie that came out of the oven. Apple is cooking right now.”

"/Yet/?" Sirius muttered first, and then he put his hands up, "I'd never dream of hurting her, I promise, Mrs. Summerfield. If I did it'd be an accident. What tea do you have? Cherry pie and strudels sound yummy. I don't care for apple," he listed off all his appropriate answers, glad he was used to James and of course, James was used to him.

"Do you like regular apples, then?" Tim tilted his head. At Sirius' nod he chuckled, "You must not like green apples, then, if you don't like apple pie. Too sour."

"The juicier the apple, the better. I don't like the skinny red ones, either," Sirius made a face.

Tim grinned at his wife, "If Goldie is bringing Sirius here to see us, then he must already be a good person. She didn't do that with her last one. I consider this a good sign. Oh! Speaking of Signs, did you send your owl to Miss Bria?"

“I did.” Mary nodded her head. “It’s a shame I wasn’t there to see the readings.” She patted Rachel on the shoulder. “Oh lord, what teas don’t we have?” Mary laughed. “We have pumpkin, apple cinnamon, constant comment, honey lavender, Kava spice, peppermint medley, green tea, earl grey, vanilla chai, vanilla spice, I could go on forever, dear.”

"You have a collection for sure!" Sirius perked, "I'll take pumpkin!" He was relaxing just a little bit, but he wanted to make a good impression. Is this what he was supposed to feel? It felt good, worrying that they'd like him for /him/ and not his reputation. They hadn't said a word about his last name. He slowly took his seat again, since tea would take a while to brew.

“Goldie dear why don’t /you/ brew the tea?” Mary asked the girl kindly. “You have a way with it that I don’t have and we’re /herbologists/ for goodness sake.” Rachel nodded her head and practically rushed out of the living room towards the kitchen, nearly tripping on her way there. Mary watched, clicking her tongue. “Every time she does that, I start worrying even more about her.”

"Why? If...I may ask," Sirius tilted his head at the older woman.

"Do you think he can handle the information, Mary love? I'd hate to tell him the secrets and have it all be a waste," Tim hesitated.

Mary looked at Sirius and said firmly, "Tell me about yourself. I don't want to hear anything that has to do with Black. I want to know Sirius, Goldie's boyfriend. You think you know the difference?"

That was a tall order. Sirius swallowed, "I believe so..." he shifted uncertainly. "I'm...I've recently discovered along with my best friend Remus and another friend, Peter, that I'm not very honest with myself. I have fears about losing my friends and I don't speak my true mind. I'm...used to saying what people want and doing what people expect of me. I'm not a coward, though. Not just because of my house, either," he said firmly, "I am willing to face these things, I just had to come to terms with it all, and it's still processing."

"Because you didn't realize you did it. Not completely," Timothy observed.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, "I'm loyal to my friends. I'd die for them, and even go to terrible lengths for them. They keep me sane and from thinking of all the bad in my life that make me dark. I don't like feeling or being a dark person, but it's there. So I covered it up with brightness. Brightness a lot of the time I don't feel internally."

"There's a 'but', there's always a 'but'," Tim coaxed.

"But...Rae and even Bria, too, have made me realize this. Rae is a beautiful creature, inside and out. I've read her dream journal in Divination...I gathered clues about her past that way. Her mom's dead, and by one line I know her father's an arse..."

"More than that, my boy," Tim sighed.

That made Sirius frown, but he shook his head, "Other clues popped up from other conversations, but I could only piece them together slowly. Anyway...even though she's broken, I think she's gorgeous. There's so much and I want to know it all."

“Broken? Oh dear boy,” Mary clicked her tongue as she sat down on the couch near the recliner so she could talk to Sirius without having to continue to stand. “She does have a beautiful soul doesn’t she?” She smiled at Sirius, knowing too well that he looked fearful that his answers weren’t good enough. “But gosh does beauty come from a horrible place. You have a good, beautiful soul in you too. I see it and I feel it. You have a very similar life-style.” She nodded and turned to Timothy. “I say trust him. His loyalty, even if they break up, will be enough to keep his mouth shut.”

Tim watched Sirius for a little bit longer before he smiled again, taking his hand from his mouth, "Alright. Well...I had only two school years to watch and learn about Bria and Goldie, but boy...did I learn so much in that time. Allow me to tell you about Bria, as I heard through letters she's with your friend Remus," he nodded, "If Remus ever has problems, too, have him talk to me," he added.

"Alright. Tell me whatever you need," Sirius was on the edge, listening intently.

"Mary helps Bria with her Empathy and teaches her how to shield, especially when she loses it and becomes very vulnerable. Bria's come to our house in the dead of morning and we'd have to send an owl to Dumbledore because she had a nightmare or delved too deeply into herself and had a breakdown. She has so many fears, it makes /me/ depressed and I hate that feeling," Tim sighed.

He continued, "While Bria and Goldie are very much like sisters, they are also very different. They both have bleeding hearts and will do whatever they can to please. Bria doesn't try to please her classmates or her teachers, she tries to be present and something good for her Nana and mom to come home to. Because she thinks that if she's good enough, or does the right thing, they'll be home more. At the same time, how I found out was she enjoyed staying in my classroom or the greenhouse after school hours to just...talk. She isn't a teacher's pet by any means, she just enjoys talking so she can hear other people's opinions on things. She makes her choices and judgement based on the answers. You've discovered already I'm sure she /loves/ clues and figuring people out. It's how she stays safe."

"Abandonment..." Sirius dawned on the realization and winced hard, "She told me her fear was isolation, but that all sounds like she has /abandonment/ problems." Timothy shook his head, but Sirius saw him wipe his eyes before taking a deep breath. "Merlin's beard these girls are so tragic."

"In spite of all of this, while Miss Bria longs for a family, she can get that type of support just by having someone to consider a sister, like Goldie-Puff. She's strong enough to make it out and move out on her own without needing a parent or a guardian."

"That's relieving, I remember being told about her self-confidence before. So it's just her relationships with others. She's terrified of not just losing them, being abandoned by them," Sirius could relate in a way that made his heart hurt.

"Yes, precisely. Now...Goldie...Goldie on the other hand, throws /all/ her focus on everyone else because she wants to be loved and loved in a desperate manner," Timothy turned the tides now, "Her hugs? She clings, and often doesn't want to let go. She refuses to do it in public, however, because she doesn't like feeling vulnerable. When she hugs someone, she lets her barriers down briefly. It's a small window to get to know exactly how she's feeling. Perky, down, mellow...it's all in how she wraps her arms around you."

Sirius remembered the day of the reading. She was so giddy when she hugged Peter, and so very thankful. It radiated from her and dripped in her voice. The hug with him was comforting, but lingering with intrigue and shyness. "I think I know what you mean. What else?"

Tim beamed as he asked, "Rae /craves/ that support. She can't just get it from Bria, she wants a family more than anything because it was the one thing taken away from her. Bria basically never had it, so why miss something that was never there?" he said slowly, "The owl I kept talking about...Mary interpreted Bria's Support and Healing cards. They weren't wrong."

That made his jaw drop and eyes widen, "What?"

"You cannot support our Goldie-Puff. You can love her, and try your damnedist to be there for her, but you cannot give her the thing she wants most. You can't offer your own family as a substitute," Tim frowned.

That floored him. Sirius looked down in disappointment, shoulders dropping, "No...I suppose you're right."

Mary watched him for a moment before taking one of his hands into hers, making him look at her. “While you cannot give her a family of her own, not yet at the very least, take some comfort in knowing that no one, not even Bria has to worry about giving her that support. I’ve been friends with Goldie’s mother for such a long time. We fell out of contact, but when I discovered that she died…oh my heart broke in to a thousand of pieces.” Mary paused, her lips pursed. “Sirius dear, do you by chance know Goldie’s big fear?”

"Darkness? Bria slipped," Sirius guessed.

"And you can thank her bastard of a father for it," Mary said with a soft hiss. It was a good thing that the kettle took time to whistle and so a lot of it was missed. She shook her head. "Many people will give you advice about her, darling. But advice doesn't do you well when you don't know." She took her wand out and carefully whispered a muffling charm over towards the kitchen. "Just a precaution. Goldie probably already knows...or she's just so damned focused on getting things right in the kitchen she's not going to notice." She put her wand away and turned to Sirius. "She works and studies so hard on those tests and her homework that it's amazing. It's only that she doesn't allow herself to have fun." Her smile faded. "Her father isn't any help. That man not only hurts her physically, but emotionally as well. Oh the emotional abuse is easy to spot." She took a breath. "That girl cannot make a mistake. She cannot fail. If she even so much as makes a mistake in a tiny little thing, and someone points it out, she falls apart at the seams. Failing? Oh I would be scared out of my wits if she so much failed a class, not because she's not smart. Oh no. It's because of what she'll do when she does."

"Please don't say what I think you mean," Sirius groaned deeply. Self-harm...that's what he guessed she'd say. It wouldn't be a surprise, but that didn't make it hurt any less. "Her father beats her and puts her down. What a /wonderful/ parent," he grumbled.

"I think you already know where I'm going with this. She doesn't cut, she doesn't like blood that much. But fast pain? Something she understands? You can bet her father was the start of that habit." Mary paused and smiled softly. "But there's hope you know. She's such a good person, you see it, Sirius. She's willing to do whatever she can to help someone, even if they scorn her. It's very rare that girl will hate, and to be honest I don't think it's her ability. But you?" She looked at Sirius. "You're a gift."

"How am I a gift to her when I can't support her?" Sirius frowned deeply.

"You make her happy," Mary smiled at him. "Did you /see/ the way she scampered to the kitchen to make tea? Sure, she may be doing it to please us, but imagine if you asked her to cook, or asked her to sing. Anything of the sort. She'd do it for you. She's quick to fall in love, I'm certain that it's you."

Sirius blushed a bit, "I like the sound of that. I want to protect her. She's not like the other girls I've gone into a relationship. I already told her about how they usually end after a month and I want something serious with her. She's been really hesitant up until recently and that makes me happy."

"As it should," Tim assured him with a gentle voice, "It means she's willing to try and that's more than she's been willing to do for a while."

"I'm back," Rachel was carrying a tray with tea cups, a plate of cherry pie and a couple of strudels, and a kettle. She was careful with her walk. "Sorry it took a bit. Nice chat?"

"Wonderful dear," Mary winked at Sirius.

~*~

"You wanted to know what my favorite place was," Sirius smiled as he took her into the Three Broomsticks, "This is...not very original, but I enjoy this place to people watch. Not necessarily to talk to people and party. I usually get a butterbeer and sit in the back corner unseen."

Rachel nodded as they walked inside. There was a lot of students who surrounded the tables and a few at the bar area. There was a witch, a gorgeous barmaid, who was serving the students with a flourish. There were a few adults who were also there. The ambience of the place was lovely, but crowded. She stuck close to Sirius as they walked to the back corner. He slipped in first, and considering that it was people watching, she slid in next to him, keeping a bit of distance in case he didn't want her close. "Why is it your favorite? Just the people watching?"

"The different types of people, shapes and sizes, listening to conversations. People talk about the craziest stuff when they're drunk. It's a form of information if you're paying attention. If not, then it's a nice way to just zone out while having a drink and thinking about life," Sirius shrugged, "It's not a complicated reason why I'm here. It all depends on what I'm here for."

She nodded and looked around at the people. She wondered to herself if he ever felt like he was being swallowed up. The crowd was endless, the chatter was hard to pin point. His ears were probably better than hers. One of the waitresses came by and smirked. "Well now isn't this a sight. Your either alone or with James, Sirius. You want the usual?"

Sirius beamed, "Thank you, Madam Rosmerta. This is my new girlfriend. She doesn't like her actual name, but I call her Milady Fuchsia, or either or. It doesn't matter. Yes, I'll take my usual drink, but could I have the 'Shepherd's Pie with Garden Salad'?"

"Of course," Rosmerta looked over at the magenta haired woman. "And for you?"

"I'll have the same." Rachel said, a little taken aback. The woman nodded again and tossed Sirius a wink before she left. "You know, I'm at a loss of what to talk about." She admitted with a smile. "The atmosphere is a bit loud though, so if I miss what you hear don't take offense."

"That's alright. It is the weekend..." he leaned over and whispered, "James did stumble on a passageway, though, that goes through Honeydukes. Rosmerta doesn't say anything if a student sneaks in on a different day. Next time, we could try Hogshead. It's not usually as popular."

Rachel grinned, "That sounds like a lot of fun." She paused. "I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable, visiting Timothy and Mary, or made you feel like I was putting some kind of pressure on you."

"No! Actually, it was rather informative," Sirius promised, "I loved them. They were both really sweet, and reminded me of Arthur and Molly or a flipped version of Eri and Raiden. What are they to you, though?"

Rachel blinked and smiled brightly. "Family. Like...an aunt or a uncle. Or a mom and a dad." She kicked her legs back and forth to get rid of her nervousness without looking weird. "I've been considering giving them my name and letting them call it...or telling them that they can give me a new name. Not a nickname...a legit one."

"Will you tell me one secret? What is the /real/ reason you hate Rachel so much? Why can Bria call you Rae?" Sirius asked.

Rachel stopped her kicking and she allowed her shoulders to droop. "Bria knew me back when I didn't mind being called Rachel." She said after a moment. "I started to dislike it and Bria came up with Rae." She paused. "I think...I started to really feel revolted by my name after the first relationship I ever had went down south. It wasn't his fault, but...Dad tends to let his temper get the best of him. He said some pretty nasty things and scared the kid off. Of course, most of those things were said to me directly. So...I started to erase who I was. I need a clean slate. Only problem is that I can't give myself a name. So...I tell people to give me one. Doesn't matter what you call me, all they are is titles until I find a name I think I want to stick with really."

"Do you think if a relationship ruined your name, a relationship could fix it? Or am I being too hopeful and romantic?" Sirius laughed softly, "Does it revolt you when I say it?"

"You're a bit hopeful." Rachel smiled softly, "But at the same time, so am I. See, the main reason isn't just because of a failed relationship." She looked at Sirius. "My dad gave me that name, it was his mom's name. So I have attachments behind it." She leaned against the table, putting her weight on her folded arms. "I mostly want to cut those attachments. Deny that I'm blood. At the same time, I wish that it was different. That dad will wake up and realize what a jackass he's been and change. So far, I've been wrong, but I've been praying and hoping that something'll change."

She paused in her tirade and looked at Sirius, "Maybe you should use my name a little. Let's see if it changes with your voice. Maybe that's what I need."

"What's your middle name?" Sirius tilted his head at her. It broke his heart to see her like this. That her father was such an awful person she would more or less want to disown herself from him. He felt the same with his own parents, but more his mother than his father.

"Rose." Rachel wrinkled her nose in uncertainty, "Does that sound too girly?"

"/Oh/ so has Milady Rose been more on the mark than I first believed? I didn't want to be cliche," Sirius' grin split his face.

She laughed, "Milady Rose makes me sound like royalty." She shook her head from side to side. "You like that better than Fushia then?"

"Well what happens when your hair isn't so vibrant anymore and you change it to a different color? It wouldn't be so accurate then, which is why I just call you Milady recently," Sirius hummed, "You can be royalty to me. Who cares about your blood?" he shrugged, "If you don't mind then I'll use it. I find Rose to be very beautiful, though, not too girly. Now I know it's your middle name, it takes on a new meaning as well."

"Then Rose is yours." Rachel's heart thudded hard into her chest. It felt like a panic attack, but...she wasn't scared. It was more...freeing. She knew she was in danger of falling for him. She knew that what she was doing was only leading her closer to that path. But honestly? She was so tired of holding back. "Take care of it. It's my mother's name for me."

"All the more reason to love it," Sirius assured. Their food arrived, and he thanked Rosmerta before she walked away again, "How about a different, lighter topic?"

"Oh, is it too soon to ask about naughty things?" Sirius' smirk was terrible.

"Depends on what "Naughty" your thinking of." Rachel grinned. "If you're asking about a criminal record, I haven't gotten that far with my life."

"Unless you count detention as a criminal record, neither have I," Sirius snickered, "I was...wondering something a bit more risque. About you and Bria."

"Hm." Rachel hummed as she took a drink from her glass. "Go ahead. Ask your questions."

"Have you done anything /together/?" Sirius popped a potato in his mouth.

"We kissed." Rachel replied. "We tried to go farther, but...we were young and stupid and I got flustered. Sometimes if i'm feeling /super/ affectionate I'll kiss her on the cheek. Sometimes I do that to Raiden. It's mostly Marcus who gets that kind of affection most of the time."

"Aw, so thank you for the cheek kiss earlier then," Sirius smiled, "A kiss, huh? Not as scandalous as Remus and I," he leaned closer, "We've /definitely/ gone further."

"So not only do I get to have Remus as my dating advice person, but also how to please you in bed?" Rachel quipped back.

"Precisely," Sirius winked at her, "So another naughty question is then...would Bria enjoyed Rem being rough in bed? I tend to start it but he ultimately gets into it and takes control. One of those we fight for the top and he tends to win. Lots of hair grabbing and pulling..."

"She'd enjoy that so much." Rachel snorted. "It'd be a wet dream come true for her. What do you like in sex?" She asked curiously at Sirius.

"Not sure if Rem will be mortified or relieved at that revelation. Probably a mix of both," Sirius mumbled as he ate a little bit more, then answered with, "Balance. That's what I like. What I get I give back."

Rachel nodded. "Considering you like it rough, you wouldn't mind it. I like the powerplay myself If I'm honest. I like to earn what I get."

Sirius arched a brow at her, "/Have/ you...?" already had sex? "Is that why your first boyfriend's failure messed you up so bad?"

Rachel laughed. "Yeah we did." Her smile faded. "Only once, it was dreadful. No, dad found us lying on the couch together and blew up. Called me a whore, told the kid to get out, you know, the usual things." She shrugged. "Never had sex after that. It was boring and hurt and....it wasn't a good first time."

"He didn't know how to use it properly, then," Sirius wrinkled his nose, "Granted, Remus and I were /awful/ the first, like, two-three times, but we eventually figured it out. I understand why you gave up. No reason to if you were terrified away from it and never had a boyfriend after that." He tucked her hair behind her ear, "I'd enjoy trying if or when you're ready. I'll be satisfied with variations of kisses until then, if you're okay with Remus and I romping once in a while."

"Hmmm." Rachel smiled at him. "I would like to try with you." She felt her stomach coil with butterflies. "As for you and Remus that's fine. I think he might be a little slower with Bria."

"Like me, he wants things to go right," he nodded, "I hope that's not what is making her insecure, though. Or is it something else?"

Rae sighed as she thought about how to tell him. "They're a slippery slope. She's holding herself back from expressing things because of the slow pace, but also because she fears that if she starts opening up to him, he's going to leave her. Rem on the other hand is going to be suffering under trying to figure out how to balance a love life, friends, and his prefect career so he's going to be trying to split time. Bria might like that, but she's going to see it as him slipping farther away from her. Her impatience might even grate on his nerves. They both had negative support. They don't know how to talk."

"Would you explain your quote from that night? It was so random and confusing. I know it was Shakespeare, but Remus knew better than I do about things like that," he shook his head.

"Basically what I said was that every love that has a trial went through something trivial that basically doesn't matter. They're going to have a fall out, and I can almost guess that it's going to be something that's trivial and stupid because of insecurities and unable to communicate. There's a reason why I try to remind myself to talk." Rachel paused. "A long time ago, I wouldn't have even bothered trying. I like signing most."

"I noticed," Sirius nodded, "I'm glad we're talking then. It's been a very enlightening date, I'll tell you what."

"There's another way to communicate too than just talking." Rachel pursed her lips together. She wasn't a very good flirter. In fact, she'll hands-down admit Bria was probably better than her.

"Is that so?" Sirius took a drink of butterbeer, looking at her sideways. He slipped his arm around her waist when he set it down, "What other way is that?"

She nearly lost her courage. Her heart was thudding so fast, and her vision turned tunneled. However, she took a breath and she leaned up just a bit to catch his lips with hers. She hoped that she wasn't too straightforward and that it was something he'd enjoy.

Sirius hummed in approval and pressed his lips a bit more firmly against hers. He wanted to make it deeper by instinct and habit, but he would wait until she initiated it. Knowing she was self-conscious about PDA, he brought his hand up to her face and more or less turned his body so he hid her from sight.

She felt the shift and she parted her mouth against his, letting him slip his tongue into her mouth. Her toes practically curled and she cupped his cheek with her hand, bringing her other arm find a place to wrap around him. His taste was soft, bittersweet, and made her world spin so fast it made her dizzy. Everything disappeared and the only thing she was sure of was his lips, his body, and his scent. When he parted, she had to keep her eyes closed for a bit longer to calm a hummingbird heartbeat and her brain from skidding out of her skull like a fast car. "Damn."

"I wasn't expecting to French right away, but that was /great/, Rose," he purred, "Careful or we might reach that 'try' part faster than you'd like, too. I can be a sexual fiend."

"Just as long as it's before Christmas." Rachel laughed as they went back to their food. She leaned a bit more into him, and relaxed completely. Maybe it was good that this was a busy restaurant and people were too absorbed to care. She forgot how nice it was to be ignored, especially for something like this.

~*~

Remus lead her into Scrolls and Tomes, a good sized two story bookstore. The layout was circular, the shelves lined up with the walls, following the curves of the building. There were free standing bookshelves as well, and small signs hanging from the ceiling that sometimes would fly around when someone requested a book and would point at the correct shelf.

The building was a cozy place and peaceful. There was only a few people that were at the front counter, and Remus nodded his head to them when they waved. “I hope you don’t mind that I took you here.” He said with a smile. “But I recall that you liked to read.”

Bria's grin was bright, "Yes! Fantastic," she bounced her way over to the Muggle Fantasy section, where stories of dragons and mermaids and other things were, "What's your favorite genre?"

“Fantasy, folklore, a little of history. I do enjoy some romance novels.” Remus hummed. “Sirius sometimes go after the romance novels as “research”, so I like to guide him to good ones so he’s not…rambling about things that don’t make any type of sense. Dark fantasy is mostly my go to genre. Not too much on the horror side, but…the setting of it. If that makes any sense.”

"Mysterious are we?" Bria giggled, but secretly perked at his mention of romance, "What...kind of romance books do you like? I enjoy the...em...Supernatural or Paranormal type ones...with demons and creatures..." she felt her face heating but she pretended to look at the titles, hiding her face with her hair shyly.

“That’s kind of the same romance novels that Sirius goes after as well.” Remus laughed, “Hm. The supernatural ones are interesting, but I find slice of life romances to be sweet. I suppose it’s considering that I’m supernatural myself that I don’t find those kind of romances very intriguing, but the normal ones are.”

"Oh, I see. That makes sense," Bria nodded, "Because there's such a fear of Dark Creatures I've never found my likes here. I usually bring them from home since there's a muggle library there I can buy from." She took a very deep breath, "Can I...start asking you more, um...personal type questions? Of course I'll give you my answers as well, if you ask. I won't if you like the mystery of figuring me out...and you don't have to tell, either. Just say Next."

“I’d enjoy that,” Remus smiled as he scanned the book titles. “As much as I like a mystery, a mystery has clues. So far, I only have very few to go on. You can also say next if my questions make you uncomfortable too,” he turned and looked at her dead in the eyes to show his seriousness.

Bria swallowed thickly, "So...what's your perfect woman? Don't...don't say things to make me feel better or anything, Tell me what you honestly want or look for in your significant other."

“Hm.” He wandered to another part of the shelf, his eyes still scanning the titles. He bent down when he saw one interesting title and pulled it out. He barely glanced at the cover as he went to the back of the book. He was a firm believer that book covers shouldn’t be judged unless it was horrible. “That was a hard question. I hadn’t really thought of it, considering that I thought my love life was null and void due to my furry little problem. I suppose if I had to think of a partner…loyalty would be a big trait. Loving my friends close to second. And accepting that I’m polyaromatic and bisexual. I have many loves and I don’t want to give them up. I suppose it’s because I’m attached.” He frowned, “I never thought appearance wise. Never cared much about it. Gender, looks, love is what matters. I think those three things are my top list though.”

Bria smiled brightly at him, "Sirius?" she guessed with a sly look even if he didn't see it, "I'm a little bi-sexual too, but I do lean more towards the heterosexual side. I can find girls just as sexy and want to romp with them."

“Have you and Rae done anything then?” Remus asked as he looked at her. It would be surprising to know that she was swinging back and forth or around in a circle. “And yes, Sirius.” He smiled shaking his head. “I suppose it’s obvious, considering if you take me and Rae as mirrors and you and Sirius as mirrors.”

"When I said you were my first kiss, I meant with a boy," Bria blushed, "Rae and I never got farther than that, though, she ran away looking like a tomato."

Remus laughed, “I wonder if she’ll do the same thing if Sirius gets the guts to kiss her. He’s a good snog. A little rough around the edges, but he can be soft and sweet. It depends on his mood and what kind of romp he’s going for.” He paused in thought. “Is Rae…any type of sexual that you know of? Or did she figure she was straight after that kiss?”

"Asexual for a long time," she nodded, "I'm glad Sirius is bringing her out to experiment again." She thought for another question and she wondered how many times her face and neck would heat up, "What's...your position in the bedroom with Sirius?"

“It depends on the mood,” Remus said as he wandered once more to another part of the shelf. He wasn’t finding much, but then again his mind was on the conversation. “We…fight for our positions, especially after a bad night and I’m still a bit…crazy.” He paused. “Most of the time I top. Some of the times he tops. We switch.”

Her imagination got away from her and she had no doubt in her mind that Remus would be able to smell the pheromones on her. Goddess Aphrodite she was a pervert. She moved further away to another bookshelf as well, reaching for one that had dragon in the title and scooted it out, admiring the bookcover art and then flipped it over to read the back. Distraction... "Do you have any kinks?"

“Pass.” Remus’ cheeks heated. “I’d talk about them, just…not where people will overhear."

"Right...um...okay..." Bria shifted. Another flash of an image and she whimpered under her breath. She wanted to do more than that, but held back. She wasn't sure how his wolf would act and she didn't want to make him uncomfortable, no matter how much she wanted her flashes to come true. Perhaps later, when they were more open with each other and relaxed in the relationship. "Do you have any for me that I'm not coming up with?" she floundered, her brain still trying to pick itself up from the gutter.

Remus was thoughtful as he went to another side. The dirty questions were alright and things, but...they weren't giving him anything. "Tell me...how does Rae know so much about werewolves?" He asked after a moment. "I know she reads, the muggles have interesting ideas and concepts, but again a lot of the information that she was spouting almost sounds like she was apart of the culture. Did you know that much of them too?"

"No, I don't," Bria shook her head, "It's her Sight and research mixed together. She found things people have published about wolves in the wild, remotely observed and other things, and her Sight filled in the blanks. Does that make sense?"

“How does her Sight work?” Remus asked curiously. “I know that you’re empathetic and you’re able to read people, which really helps when your using your cards. But her Sight…does it have some sort of…trigger? Or empathy? Is it animal empathy? I’m just trying to make sense of it,” he admitted after ra moment. “It boggles my mind that someone on the Outside knows the In. It’s like…well, Sirius would describe it as having an unknown voyeur in the bedroom and then talking about what they saw. It’s crude, but…I hope it makes sense. God I’m rambling.”

"Now see you're cute when you ramble because you don't do it very often," Bria grinned at him, "I always feel like I'm being annoying. Anyway, her visions usually require a trigger. She had one about our reading, I bloody know she did, which is what that Midsummer's Night Dream quote was about. Sometimes her visions are really fast and fleeting and she can't gather all the information from it, but she's gotten better at it. She /can/ force it, but she puts herself at risk doing that. Sometimes she has a nosebleed, but more often than not it's a bad migraine. What is relieving, however, is her visions are subjective if the people it refers to changes their mind."

Remus recalled a year ago, a girl with bright electric blue hair had a horrible nosebleed. In fact, it went on for the past year up till they had to leave. Sometimes it was a minor thing, but there were a few times where he heard through the grapevine that the girl was in the Hospital Wing for a good day due to losing so much blood. The girl was always pale as a ghost too. “Was that Rae then, last year?” He asked as he looked at Bria. “Blue hair with the chronic nosebleeds? Was she forcing herself to See back then or…was it something more major?” He could think of a few medical problems that would bring out chronic nosebleeds, and prepared himself to tell Sirius the worst.

"She was testing her limits, so it ended up looking like chronic nosebleeds were an issue," Bria nodded, "That's when Marcus started calling her Ghost. She accidentally made herself anemic that year, and in the muggle world had something called an iron infusion, but it got better over the summer."

Remus winced sympathetically. "Do you know, by chance, what triggers set off her Sight? Or do you or Rae have any symptoms? I read some Seers faint with a vision or...cannot wake up properly from a dream. Do you have someone as a grounding tool?"

"Rae...doesn't have anything other than what I told you, besides she enjoys being cryptic with her messages when she's trying to hint at a vision," Bria rolled her eyes, "Now I have two that I /know/ of. One is what I call "Dream Overlays"...and depending on the dream can be good, bad, or sometimes funny. Basically I wake up or someone wakes me up and I'm still in 'dream land' or whatever and my dream will make things or people what or who they are not, in reference to my dream. Lily was once blond with braces."

"Oh, that must make for interesting conversation." Remus hummed in thought. The dream overlay would probably be terrifying depending on what she was dreaming about though. "When did you discover you were a Seer?"

"It didn't click until I started coming here to learn magic..." Bria admitted, "But, before...before my mom left, I would sleep with her during thunderstorms because I am afraid of thunder. I can watch lightning forever, but thunder is scary. I...had a nightmare, and I don't remember what it was about because it was so long ago, but something happened to her in it that made her go away. When I woke up she was gone, went to work or left to get groceries I don't remember that either, but I was so...so very upset. That's the second one. In my dreams...If someone nearby or that I'm close to leaves, every once in a while my dream will reflect that and then I panic when I wake up and they're nowhere to be found."

The more she spoke, the more Remus was starting to think that she didn't have isolation problems, but abandonment issues. Her parents basically weren't around, and they didn't seem to take care of her well-being. It ticked him off. Parents weren't supposed to be abusive to their children. He will say that he was quite thankful for Lily. Lily would hold Bria during those storms and keep her grounded so she wouldn't be so afraid. Especially in class. He decided to change topics, and change them now. "Have you given any thought as to what you'll tell Professor McGonagall for future careers before O.W.L.S testing?"

"Oh Goddess, not a clue," Bria put the book she had been holding for a while back on the shelf, and squished her own cheeks together, "I don't have anything that I want to do as a magical person, anyway. I just want to be an author. That's all I want in life. I don't know what to do besides!"

"I would like to become a Professor or a teacher of sorts. Hopefully that's something that I can do when I get out of Hogwarts. It'll be quite hard to find a wizarding job considering my issue, but..." Remus shrugged. "I can't see myself doing any of the muggle ones. Not quite."

"What would you teach at Hogwarts if you could? Potions? It would be ironic if you said DADA," Bria nodded, "I can see you being a muggle Professor of something like English, or the library custodian. Hell, you could also be that one substitute teacher that knows a little bit of everything so you sub for everyone and are loved by everybody because you're a life saver."

Remus laughed, "Actually, I would go for the DADA position. You forget, I'm terrible at potions. I wouldn't make a good teacher of it at all. Hmm, Literature maybe. I wouldn't want to be stressing about grammar and topic sentences. But books and such."

"I enjoyed my creative writing class," Bria bounced on the balls of her feet, "I hope you get your dream come true for a teacher, whatever you land. You'd be the best teacher no matter what. I think you'd have a creative way of teaching and would get the children involved so it's not boring notes all the time, and you could connect with them easy. No one's a teacher's pet per se because they all love you."

"I hope so." Remus agreed. "Shall we continue on? I'm not finding much in this section. Are you?"

"I haven't really looked," Bria blushed but she nodded, "Show me some things you've read you think I might like!"

()

Rachel nearly choked laughing as Peter and James were re-accounting what they did with the kitchen. Poor Eri not only made them clean up the mess without magic and without the House-Elves help, but she was denying them any kind of food for about two weeks. Raiden wasn’t included in this, since he wasn’t the one who did it. Freaked out Marcus since it had let out a loud sound. Rae felt bad for him really.

“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the ketchup to reach the ceiling,” James wound down the story. “I just thought that it was just going to overflow and get all over the floor and table. It did do that, but…with some height to it.”

“Poor Eri stomped off to take a shower, it got all over her.” Remus sighed. “It was harsh considering that it was breakfast for one, and for two she didn’t have time to take one. Hence the no food for two weeks. We made her late and broke her record. She’s downright furious.”

“I’ll figure out a way to apologize.”

“You better, I thought she was going to be near tears.” Raiden frowned deeply at James. “You know better than to fuck around with her kitchen.”

Bria snickered deeply, "At least the teachers understand when she says it was your fault. Of course, isn't that a bad thing to have that kind of rep?" she arched a brow as she crunched on a ranch-covered carrot.

“Being pranksters? yes and no.” James shrugged. “It means we get the credit where credit is due.”

“You call getting detention credit?” Rachel asked curiously. “You’re a strange one.”

“Well, we’re breaking school record for most detentions.” James grinned. “Has to count for something.”

Sirius came up for air from chowing down on his food, "James got me earlier in the week with a poisoned oreo!"

"And I got James with the head in the jar," Peter snorted, "This is the week of pranks. Eri shouldn't have let us into her kitchen to begin with."

“Sirius got me with a couch.” Raiden laughed.

“Really? How?” Rachel asked, leaning in to hear more.

“Don’t bother listening to a lion that has a kitten’s purr, Shadow Baroness. You’re too good for that. Especially when all they do is hiss.” A voice drawled causing everyone to look up or turn around to look to see who was speaking. It was a Slythern boy, probably no younger than a year below them, or at least their year. His eyes were droopy and he had a posture of carelessness and ease.

"We'd get in trouble if we roared at you," Sirius sneered back, "Not that you're worth it, either."

"/Sirius/, don't start a fight at the table," Bria snapped, "He's not here for you."

“Precisely what Lady Fair said,” His nose wrinkled up, as if even saying her name was distasteful. He turned back to the Ravenclaw in question. “I’m in need of a spell.”

“Lucky for you that it’s near the full moon,” Rae shrugged. “And close to Samhain.”

“Will you be attending the festival in Hogsmeade?” The Slythern boy asked curiously, shifting his weight and showing a posture of listening, rather than just a careless attitude.

“I may just keep a candle burning.” Rachel smiled softly. “But enough of that, you want a spell.”

He nodded, “A love spell specifically.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” James mouthed to his friends.

"No," Bria shook her head, "Not Rae's. It's not a potion or trick to make someone fall for you. It's like good luck."

Sirius tilted his head, "Her Wicca?"

"Yes. She makes charms to fit the request made," Bria nodded.

The boy frowned deeply at the Black who was talking. He rolled his eyes like it was an annoyance and looked back at Rae who had her eyes closed in deep thought, and he braced himself.

“Hmm.” She opened her eyes. “You’re on my list of requests. What kind of love spell are you looking for? A love to be guided to you, or you guided to them? A charm to make you seem more attractive? Perhaps to get an old flame back?”

“A spell to be noticed,” The boy replied. “So perhaps a guide.”

“I know a spell for that. But…”

“It comes with a price.” He sucked in a breath. “I’m prepared for it.”

“I need a lock of your hair.” Rae said simply, “And also….hm.” She tapped her finger to her chin. “I’m debating. Four galleons or a handshake between one of the Marauders, what will be a good price.” The boy pursed his lips together. “I think both. Both will be a wonderful price. How about it.” She looked at the Marauders. “Does that seem acceptable to you guys?”

"I think the one who has similar love problems," Peter drawled, glancing at James.

"Why not Sirius?!" James asked, pointing over at the man. "He could give the kid good luck. Or hell even Remus."

"Your luck will be his luck," Bria mused.

"So cruel," Sirius' brows rose up.

"Lily isn't that bad!" Bria defended.

James pursed his lips together and turned to Rae. "Does it /honestly/ matter who shakes the bloody bloke's hand?"

"If you believe in karma. I believe you'd want maximum effect for your love life, right?" Rae looked pointedly at the boy.

The boy obviously wasn't pleased with any of this. "You humiliate us."

"Really?" Remus asked dryly. "You went with that imagery?"

"Isn't it true though?" Rae asked sweetly. "If I asked Sirius to shake his hand, he wouldn't have one anymore. James is a least second kindest."

"Well, Sirius did growl at him when he showed up," Bria nodded.

"Bloody Fucking Merlin." The boy snapped as he rolled his sleeves up like was preparing for a fight. Instead, he thrust his hand out, and tensed, as if he waiting for something. "I can rise above this humiliation. At least it's you and not Black, Potter."

James frowned as he took the boy's hand. It was probably the quickest handshake that ever happened, but it was done. The boy sniffed and turned to Rae. "Does quantity matter for my hair?"

"No, just small lock is fine." Rae shook her head. "I can cut it for you." He nodded and she stood up, leaning over the table so that she could get a hold of his hair. She cut, just enough of it so that the tips were a bit uneven, but it was hardly noticeable. "Tomorrow I'll give you the spell." She told him as she summoned a small bag and placed the hair inside. "I expect four galleons from you when the spell's delivered."

"Fair." The boy snapped before turning on the balls of his feet and practically marching his way to his table again.

"......I feel like I need to wash my hand." James frowned.

"James," Bria stared at their leader, "You probably knew that boy on the train in first year. Get over the stupid handshake."

"Four galleons. Why that price?" Sirius asked.

"If you knew the pains I have to go through to do a spell, you'd think I'm being nice.  Four galleons in muggle money is actually about 10 pounds in muggle currency." Rachel explained. "But it depends on the spell. My readings are actually 1 galleon, 2 sickles, and 13 knuts. Double it if it's a couple. Which is actually 3.45 pounds. I had to do a bunch of trial and errors before I got the prices where I want them."

"Why are your readings lower than the charms?" Peter asked curiously.

"Charms require supplies, concentration, correct astronomy, correct moon position, and correct time of day." Rachel said simply. "I can basically get away with murder when it comes to Sabbats, since the gods are listening closely to those days since that's they're day of celebration. Readings? I just have to sit there and connect with the divine and maybe push my mind a bit in order to See what the cards are telling me."

"My head hurts just listening to that. All of that? For a /spell/?" James asked incredulously.

"It works, at least for her," Bria nodded, "I could never do it. When I make charms they mainly look cute but I have a deeper connection with stones and crystals than Rae's type of magic."

“That honestly explains why you’re good at Ancient Runes,” Remus smiled at Bria appreciatively. “You know to translate the writing well.”

"So then, if your prices are so set in stone, why do you ask for more? Like the handshake?" Raiden asked curiously.

“Simple really. I don’t want them to walk all over me and think that this is an easy feat. If you want a spell, you have to want it, therefore you have to be willing not to just fork over the money, but something else in return. I call it generating karma. They call it being a “Shadow Baroness”. Apparently, I’m quite frightening with my favors. The handshake was humiliating, but I mostly did that because I didn’t like the way he talked to you guys.”

"Has anyone told you that you might do well in Slythern?" James asked her, looking at he with both fright and admiration.

Rae could only point at Bria.

Bria laughed, "Lady Fair as they call me because I love compromise and trying to help people. Slytherins don't have a problem with me because of it. They frown at me because I wear the robes, but if I'm with Rae they acknowledge me."

"A different way of thinking, I presume," Sirius nodded, "James' luck is his luck? That was clever."

"I also told you to shut up," Bria stuck her tongue out at him.

"People don't do that often," Sirius agreed laughing.

"It's okay, Bria might not like your mouth but I do." Rae said absently as she took a drink of her juice.

"OH!" Peter clapped his hand over his mouth.

"You've come to appreciate my slobbery snogs, have you? That's nice to know," Sirius raised his glass to her.

"My god that could have went a thousand different ways. Raiden's dying guys."James announced with a snicker. Raiden had his head on the table and he waved to show that he was okay. He just hadn't been expecting /that/ to come out of Rae's mouth.

"Just thankful it didn't go further south," Remus shook his head. "Speaking of," He looked at Rae. "When will you do the spells?"

"Tonight probably." Rae nodded. "Tonight and a little during the morning when I have breaks. That way most of my energy can be focused on Samhain. I'm super excited about it."

"The party will be fun, I'm looking forward to the bonfire," Bria bounced in her seat, "All of the pumpkin pie during the feast, too! Rae! Remind me to come do prayer with you!"

"Fire, pumpkin pie, and prayer..." Sirius snorted, "You're all over the place. May I see the spell or even the prayer?"

"Both?" Rae asked hopefully. "I wouldn't mind either one. The prayer's more public. The spell's a little private, but I don't mind."

"Sounds cool, just let me know," Sirius nodded.

~*~

"Wouldn't that work better if you were in more of a /romantic/ mood?" was Sirius' first question as he and Rae were sitting in the abandoned classroom where she could work in peace.

There were four votive candles; green, yellow, red, and blue, surrounding her unlit since she hadn’t began to open the circle yet. There were different kinds of supplies. Red ribbons, a pink taper candle, a bunch of small amber bottles with labels for different things. There was a blue bottles that carried about 28 grams worth of liquid. “Why, do you have something in mind?” She teased him as she placed the bag into the supplies and took a breath.

"A good, deep kiss to get the ball rolling," Sirius rumbled, on his knees at the edge of the circle, not wanting to disturb her set-up, but close enough he could grab her when she came to him.

Rae laughed, getting onto her knees and scooting close to the edge. She licked her lips teasingly, but she knew it was probably no where seductive. "Kiss me then." She murmured hotly.

Slipping his fingers into her hair, he pulled her closer. As there was no crowd he turned it up several notches from their first kiss, pressing his lips firmly against hers, head tilted just right, breathing through his nose and he licked her bottom lip. When she opened for him he dove in, tasting her unique flavor and humming at how it played with his taste-buds. He experimented with a couple things to see her reaction...from rubbing her tongue to tracing her teeth. His other hand held onto her hip and kept her flush against him, and he enjoyed how she fit against his body.

Her mind spun again but this time it wasn't so out of control she didn't know what way was up or down. She brought her arms around his neck and pushed herself close against his body, enjoying the feel of hard lines and how he fit against her like a puzzle piece. She nipped at his lips and her nails scratched at the nape of his neck before wandering to grip his hair and pull, just testing the waters.

A growl rumbled from him and he caught her bottom lip with his teeth, giving it the barest bite before he returned to the kiss, a humming moan coming at how she gripped his hair. Coiling his fist in her hair he tested to see if she liked it, too.

She gasped, breathing in his air when she pulled away from his lips. "Fuck." She muttered as she kissed him again. "You're making me hot, but I got to focus on this spell. Áine, you're going to undo me."

"Oh? What language was that, Rose?" Sirius gave her a tilt of his head, breathing hard and he cleared his throat. Releasing her he sat in a way to conceal his raging hard-on. Face flush, he enjoyed how hers was as well.

"Áine is a goddess of wealth, summer, and love." Rachel smiled warmly. "It's not a word as it is a name. I can go into mythology later, I just felt like it'd fit. Perhaps that's who I'll ask into my circle, or stick with Aphrodite."

"Go with whomever you feel fits. I like the sound of Áine," he said as he watched her start her little project, "I see why four galleons was your price, that's a lot of stuff. How much profit do you get once it's all done?"

"For this spell?" Rachel asked curiously. "Two galleons. The other two go into a small envelope that I have hidden in my trunk that no one can get into and that's used for supplies and emergency money." She carefully pushed the votive candle and rechecked her wand to make sure it was pointing north from the "point me north" request. She was thankful that she pre-cut and pre-measured everything so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. "The most expensive things in my spells are my oils and my inks." She told him. "Everything else I can get cheap at muggle stores. I have to go to special suppliers for the last two things. I need quiet for a moment." She placed her finger over lips and tucked her legs underneath her.

She sat quietly, breathing deeply, her wrists up turned on her knees as she focused on the green candle. It lasted for a good few moments before she murmured, "Guardian of the North, Element of Earth and granter of endurance and strength, please join me in my circle." Her arms crossed over her chest and her head was bowed. She stayed there again for a few moments, but then she lifted her head and carefully moved her arms to the side bringing them like she was about to open a curtain. Just as she did that, a flame appeared on the green votive candle.

She went around the circle, yellow for the east which was air, red for the south which was fire, and blue which was water. The only that changed within her chant, was that she would ask for different things. East she asked for creativity, south she called on energy, and water she called on empathy.

When the votive candles were all lit, she took a breath in and took a medium sized flask out of her robe pocket and set it to the alter. She moved the pink candle and it's holder more to the right. "Normally, you use three candles." She told Sirius. "Two to call the gods, and one to burn your prayer. But I'm not that fancy. It's a waste of time unless it's for Sabbats or saying a goodbye or a hello or a very, very intense prayer or spell."

"That makes sense I guess," he hummed quietly. He was sure that muggles with no magical power took the time to light each candle as they went through they're prayer. He was glad that Rae actually had some, because it gave her spells more power. Though...belief in your spell was just as, he was sure of it.

“You can ask questions if you have any.” She said with a smile. “I’ll answer in between my nonsense mutterings.” She picked up the flask and unscrewed the lid. She shook it, listening to the water swish. She frowned. Samhain was also going to be the day of refilling her water. She rolled her eyes and carefully poured a good amount on her hands and flicked the water on the candle, and waved her hand over the head to make it alight.

“I call upon the goddess and god of love,
Overlook my magic from above.
Make this temporary or make this last.”

She poured more water onto her hand and took the ribbon with her other. She flicked the water at the ribbon three times. “Thrice I cleanse thee of negativity.” She muttered as she picked up the ribbon and passed it over the fire, careful not to get it caught. “Thrice I burn in energy. Thrice I purify for positivity. So mote it be.” She breathed three times onto the ribbon before taking a breath and putting it down on her lap, eyes closed.

"They're not nonsense! At least not to you," Sirius grumbled, "I'm not asking questions because I'm actually finding this really fascinating and I'm just focused on watching you." He tilted his head as she did her thing with the ribbon, "I honestly thought you'd be making a bracelet of some sort, not just using a ribbon."

Rachel’s lips curved as she opened her eyes. “This is how you make a bracelet actually. Especially since there’s bells involved.” She patted her robes. “They’re small trinket bells so they’re high pitched and really annoying.” She pulled out the bells, jingling as they went. “Silencing charms on pockets is a girl’s best friend.” She said dryly as she poured the last bit of water onto her hand and scattered it on the bells, muttering the same line of cleansing them of negativity. “I’m glad you find this fun.” She sad with a smile as she pulled the ends of the ribbon and took a bell to thread it through.

She took a breath in. “With knot of one, this love’s begun.” She paused after tying the knot with the bell. After a moment, she slipped the second bell and began the second knot, “With knot of two, love shines through.” A repeated process of quiet reflection and another bell. “With knot of three, love comes to Reese.” A breath. A bell. A knot. “With knot of four, his heart will soar.” Again. “With knot of five, this spell’s alive. Knot of six, the love is fixed. With knot of seven, by blood and kin, this spell is cast and love comes in. Force and form, attend to him and me. As I will so mote it be.”

With the knots and bell completed, she reached over for the small blue bottle and took off the cap.  “With breath of love the Divine sparks a flame. True love lives and knows their name.” She carefully tied in clasps. “So you’re not wrong.” She said after a moment as she slipped the bracelet in to the purse where Reese’s hair was in. “Normally you tie hair into the bracelet, but that’s uncomfortable and I find it impractical. Also he may not want to wear it as a bracelet but to carry it around with him in the purse. Either way, so long as he leaves the bracelet in the purse during the day, it’ll soak up energy regardless.”

"That's interesting. What would have changed depending on his request of the type of love spell?" Sirius tilted his head, "With being noticed the bells are practical."

"Depends on what he was looking for." She said as leaned back. Even though she didn't have another spell to do, most of hers were already done and over with and she /really/ did need to make more holy water, it was nice to feel the energy of the circle and feeling it become secure and warm around her. "I'd do the same spell for a crush, for a love to notice him or come his way. If it was a spell for keeping a relationship, breaking a relationship, or to feel attractive or to make others see him as attractive, then yeah. I'd do different spells. For keeping a relationship, I'd use clay and tie the clay around with a ribbon etched with initials. I like ribbon and candle work the most in my spells, if I'm honest. Sometimes oils."

Rachel watched him for a moment, just...stared him with a small smile on her face. The candle light made him look frightening and unnaturally attractive. Not like a vampire, that was a bit to cliche. No, he looked something else. "I suppose I could make holy water now. I /am/ a witch." She sniffed as she picked up her wand. "I usually like getting water from a running stream or a rain storm."

"What about ocean water or the lake?" Sirius tilted his head at her.

Rachel shook her head. "Ocean water is good for water magic and weather magic. I have a bottle of that up in my trunk. I could probably use lake water. I never tried. I always used rain and rivers for some reason."

"I know of a river, we found it during the last Moon since we were able to go somewhere with him for once instead of hiding," Sirius grinned, "I could ask James to borrow a little something of his, if you'd like. It'd take me a little while, though. We could meet again in an hour back here?"

"Sure." Rachel paused and she went over to him to give him her flask. "You can put the water in this, if you manage to find some. If you don't or get caught, don't sweat it. I can always conjure water. I'll meet you here in an hour." She smiled as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

~*~

"Soooooo......" Sirius pursed his lips, "What do we do for this one?" he asked. It was only himself, Rae, and Bria here. James was down in the kitchen with Eri's permission to make those caramel apple and caramel onion prank tray for the feast. Raiden of course was the only reason she agreed, with his promise he'd keep Prongs in line.

"Soooooo......" Sirius pursed his lips, "What do we do for this one?" he asked. It was only himself, Rae, Moony and Bria here. James was down in the kitchen with Eri's permission to make those caramel apple and caramel onion prank tray for the feast. Raiden of course was the only reason she agreed, with his promise he'd keep Prongs in line. Peter was more with James so he could make sure he got some of Eri's Halloween treats.

"Are you going to add a little extra for Remus since the Full Moon is tonight?" Bria asked curiously.

Rachel hummed as she thought about it. The alter was...amazingly decorated. The alter cloth was black with orange pumpkins decorating the cloth. There was a pillar candle, a plate with a knife and fork on top of it. There was an already carved out jack o' lantern that she painstakingly carved that morning. "Why not?" She smiled warmly at Remus. "In fact, why don't you both get in the circle this time?"

"A hands on experience?" Remus asked curiously. "Wouldn't having two more people in the circle bugger your prayer up?"

"Sabbat and full moon. We can get away with anything basically." Rachel beamed. "So why not?"

"I like that, arigato," Bria bounced over to her and she sat diagonally facing her on her right side, close to her so she wouldn't disturb the candle, and she reached her hand out for Remus to take. This way they could make a triangle of sorts.

"You staying out, Pads?" Rachel asked, looking at him.

"The full moon is your thing and Bria is your girlfriend, so it makes sense for you two to be in there," Sirius shrugged. "I don't mind sitting outside, unless I could sit behind you, Rose, and hold you?" he smirked a bit.

Rachel pouted, but rolled her eyes in a playful manner. "Sit behind me." She told him sincerely. "I know you don't believe, but I'd like to share at least the ceremonies with you in the circle."

"Okay," he smiled as he stepped around the candles, getting settled behind Rae and he secured his arms around her torso, chin on her shoulder so he could watch.

"You look so cute," Bria giggled.

Remus had to grin. He knew that Sirius was a hardcore atheist, but it was nice of him to agree to sit in the circle somewhat. It was nice to see him happy. Relationships for Sirius never worked, because he was so clingy and loving or because of status and money he never wanted. It was a good sight, to see Rae being cuddled and Sirius looking pleased as peaches to be able to hold his girlfriend. "It's a shame I can't take a picture and give it to James. He'd laugh." Remus agreed.

"I'm cozy and loved." Rachel smiled warmly. "I'm ready when you are Bria." She said as she leaned back to give the illusion of hugging him back even though her hands were occupied with holding Remus' and her sister's.

Bria had done some deep breathing and she was sitting straight, focused and poised, "I'm ready. Shall I welcome mine first or you welcome yours?"

Bria took another deep breath. She always felt awkward saying her payers aloud, and her cheeks heated knowing this was the first time Remus would hear her praise her Deities. Heart pounding, she closed her eyes. "Hades, God of the Underworld, Lucifer, Fallen Angel and Ruler of Hell, by your two titles I call you, and request you listen to our prayers tonight as you open the portals to our world. Persephone, Goddess of Spring, but wife of Hades, I request your sweet soul to listen to our prayers tonight along with your husband. For the Full Moon in the sky, Artemis the Goddess of the Moon and Hunt, please look upon us and listen to our prayers tonight."

“I call upon Nicevenn faery queen and goddess of the underworld,
And Gwyn ap Nudd faery king and god of the underworld,
I humbly ask of thee to honor our circle with their presence.” Rachel paused, bowing her head and taking a slow three deep breaths before she began her story. “Forests misty, dark and deep,
the door between worlds release.
Loved ones, family, favored pets,
to join me in the evening’s fest.
The birth of new, the death of old,
I will the new cycle to unfold.
Each leaf that falls to the ground,
buries which no longer makes a sound.
In it’s place may things begin anew
With harvest gold and autumn sun
We keep the best that we have done.
As days grow shorter still,
with long nights and winter’s chill
May you speak to us through autumn winds and a soothing voice
May you guide us to wisdom’s choice
May you speak of words of fate,
and we will know which path to take.
May our ancestors and dear ones meet us before the crossroad’s door.
and speak of love and more
And in our hearts you will always have a place here.”

After this, she thought about her mother. The ache in her chest never really left. She could still picture her, almost as clearly as she could when she was alive. Blonde, long hair that was always styled in ways that made her face look young and youthful. Soft, delicate hands that touched wth warmth, and kindness. She thought about her scent, the small smell of warmth, home, vanilla, and comfort.

It was a shame, really, her mom never came back as a ghost. That she’d never see even a part of her ever again unless they were lucky to be reincarnated into each other’s lives.

Remus listened to her choke, and he could smell salt. He knew Rae was holding back tears the best that she could. It was obvious that she was missing someone a lot during this time of year, and was trying to call them back. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if she turned to this type of lifestyle in order to feel like she was somewhat connected to the other world. He squeezed her hand in comfort, and took a breath himself.

His thoughts however, went to the death of his humanity and what was considered normal. The wolf in him began to growl and he bared his teeth back. He recalled Rae telling him to talk to his wolf a little more, and slowly unclenched his jaw.

/Hated. Disliked. Want to be free./

It was a mournful…howl that oddly tore Remus’ heart.

Bria sniffed and Sirius looked up to see two tears fall from pale green eyes. He could feel Rae's from shaking but he didn't see any tears. Glancing at Bria's hands where she held Remus and Rae he saw she was holding them tightly, her knuckles white. He didn't want to say anything, but he was sure Bria's empathy picked up on strong feelings from the both of them.

Bria swallowed thickly, and while her voice was unsteady she managed to speak, "I end the prayer of Samhain with wishes from Artemis to wash my friends in moonlight and protect them this night full of energy and celebration. Guide the Marauders in their Hunt for Fun and shine their path back home at the end."

"We continue to let this candle burn till the dawn's early light, for spirits to come and be sheltered for the night. We release the circle with joys and hopes, as we will so mote it be." Rachel let go of Remus' and Bria's hand and sighed deeply. "Gosh that's always hard. I bawled when I was doing my private ritual up in the dorm room. Bonnie had to cuddle me for a bit."

Bria sniffed again and turned so she could throw herself at Remus, swinging her arms around his shoulders and nuzzling his neck, choking a bit.

"Geez, what are you two emitting that's so damn heartbreaking?" Sirius stared, "I can /guess/ what yours is, Rose, but bloody hell." He hugged Rae tightly and nuzzled her in a similar manner but it was more to be cute than to stifle sobs.

"Oh you know Sirius," Remus said as he hugged Bria tightly. "Apparently Samhain is a chance to mourn what you lost and what you may gain."

"Well, hopefully you have luck with that," he arched a brow, "Would you like me to bring you anything from the feast tonight? You can always eat it in the morning."

"Chocolate and anything James didn't rig." Remus said as he gently pushed Bria off so he could get up and start heading out. "Thank you, you two for letting me be apart of that. It was beautiful, even if it was a bit sad." He kissed Bria's cheek. "And your comfort." He murmured to her.

Bria just nodded, knowing she couldn't speak without cracking and watched him leave. When the door closes, she sniffed again, "I want to run after him...but he wouldn't like it if I joined him, that's why I didn't ask. He'd just tell me no."

"Then come with us after he's changed. He does have a block on Moony after all so he separates what he does from himself, so he probably won't even realize you were there," Sirius pointed out.

"If you're sure," Bria nodded slowly.

"Just meet us in the common room tonight and we'll take you. Raiden hasn't been going lately so you'll be fine," Sirius grinned.

~*~

Lily was a bit skeptical when she saw James emerge into the Great Hall with Peter and Sirius, the three of them each with a tray full of what looked like candied or caramel apples mixed together. She enjoyed either, so she slowly wandered over through the crowded Feast area and towards the Slytherin table where James was offering the tray to Snape.

"Why in the bloody hell would I take something from you?" Snape sneered.

"Because it's Halloween and one of my friends whose in love with the holiday wanted us to be kind to each other. Since Christmas is overrated." James shrugged. It was a flat out lie, but fucking hell. Maybe he should try to be nicer to Snape if he could get these kind of reactions out of him. It'd be fun to see if his hair would catch on fire from the Marauder kindness. "So, take one, or don't."

"I doubt they'd be so cruel as to put razors in apples for a prank, Severus," Lily said gently as she came up beside James and peered down at the tray from around his arm.

"Is that so? I wouldn't have put it passed them..." Snape's lips turned into a thin line, "I'll only take one if you do, Lily."

James really hoped that his worried expression didn't show. Shit. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. he couldn't guide Lily about what thing to take since they mixed it all up. This was Russain Roulette even for /them/. A risk, sure, but pranks were fun when they were shared. /Shit/ though, did Lily even /like/ apples and caramel? Oh god he hoped the answer was no.

Lily hummed softly and she reached out, taking one from the middle. Snape grumbled and took the one closest to him as fast as possible. She smiled at him and took a bite, which prompted him to do the same. A look of shock passed over Lily's face and she almost seemed to force herself to finish her bite while she looked at the apple. Snape was confused. The apple that was covered in caramel was a juicy, sweet kind, "It's...good," he admitted grudgingly.

"Was that an /onion/?" was Lily's response on the other hand.

Fucking hell he was going to get hexed for this. Sirius was going to laugh like a madman and Peter was going to high five Lily for whatever creative charm slash jinx she could come up with in a spur of a moment. "...Yes."

She didn't, however. Now her suspicion was confirmed, she took a much smaller bite and tried again. Swallowing this one much easier, she shook her head, "It's good in small doses if you like onion, but I took a huge chunk the first time." She used her wand to make the onion disappear and put it away. She arched a brow at him, "I'm willing to try again. If I get an apple this time I won't make you dance the night away," she purred, eyes glinting.

James' cheeks flushed and he could see Snape scowl. "It's the luck of a draw, Lily-flower." He told her. "Have another go." He could only hope that this will be better.

Lily grinned as she reached for one that was closer to him, whipping it up like a wand and almost touched his nose, before she drew it to her mouth and she kept her eyes on him as she took a bite out of it. A humming sound bubbled up from her throat, and she smirked a little, "Looks like you got away lucky tonight, Potter." She said and went to turn away before she glanced back at him, "Oh and, uh, you're cute when you blush, too," she giggled as she practically pranced away.

Snape rolled his eyes and James stared after her, mouth open like a gaping fish. He almost forgot where he was until he managed to shake himself out of it. Lily wasn't going to hex him! He grinned as he went along with the table, still spaced out that he managed to get some kind of luck with Lily.

~*~

The feast was starting to get a little overwhelming for Rae. The moment she saw the trays of the  caramel sticks, she knew that she needed to leave. She tapped Peter on the shoulder and gently gave him a hug. “I’ll be leaving.” She murmured. “I’m all energized out.”

“You feeling okay?” Peter asked, a little concerned as he watched James persuade some of the younger students to come and try this.

“Just tired.” Rachel smiled, “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast, yea?”

“I’ll tell Sirius.” Peter promised and Rachel quietly left the Great Hall, weaving through the bodies of students without calling attention of herself. It was a good thing, really, that she knew how to manipulate a crowd to hide. It also helped that her height was an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

The moment she was out, she took a deep breath and took off at a dead sprint, heading towards the entrance of the castle. Once she got out, she breathed in deeply again. The crisp October air filled her longs and calmed down her heartbeat. She reached into her pocket and took out the small perfume bottle. Sri was going to be so angry with her, for stealing this from her bag. However, Rachel knew that she needed it.

She sprayed it on her wrists and dabbed it against her neck before putting it away in her pocket. The only thing she carried with her was her wand and she had to hope that it’d work. She headed over towards the Whomping Willow, taking deep breaths with each step that she took. Moony couldn’t smell her nervousness. He couldn’t smell her fear. If he did, it could spell out the end for her.

“Oy! Whadda thin’ yer doin?” She spun around to see a massive giant, no..half-gaint? A huge man run towards her. His breathing was labored, so she knew that running wasn’t in his forte. “Whadda doin’ out here?” He snapped. “‘hat not safe for ye. Go back!”

“I know,” Rachel promised, gently. “But Remus needs me.”

“‘e dun’t need ya.” Hagrid shook his head from side to side. “‘e can handle himself!”

“Of course he can.” Rachel agreed. “But regardless I’m going to help him anyway. Him and Moony need to have a bit of a chat.”

“Moony? Say wha?” Hagrid looked at her incredulously.

“I know he’s a werewolf Hagrid.” He looked at her completely taken aback. “And I intend to help him get in touch with that.” Without saying another word, she continued on and got in front of the whomping willow. She shot a freezing spell towards the knot of the tree, causing it to stop.

“Now wait jus’ a minuet.” Hagrid called but she was already disappearing down into the secret passage. “….Reckless child.”

Rachel wasn’t expecting the secret passageway to feel so narrow. The walls were closing in against her and the darkness made her heart speed up faster. She could see shapes coming from the shadows. Once in a while, she swore she could see a hand try to grab her and she’d fling herself against the wall, holding back a scream. She could feel cold sweat drip down her face and her light on her wand was greatly diminishing.

She pressed forward, biting back terrified screams as the darkness only seemed to get worse, not better. A few times she would hear a loud noise and a loud thump, causing her to cower onto her knees and cover her head so that she wouldn’t get hit. The closer she got, the more she could hear lonely howls and whimpers.

She got to the end of the cage and she saw the trap door. Taking a breath, she used a spell to help her push the trapdoor up and open. She slowly pulled herself up, grunting as she wasn’t used to the exercise and used her stomach to help crawl against the floor boards.

She heard a loud thump and howl and she turned around to see a huge humanoid wolf hitting itself against the furniture. His teeth bared and covered in blood. She noticed teeth marks on his forearms, his hands scraped and blood was underneath his long nails, and her heart immediately sunk. “Oh..Moony.”

Her voice made his ears jerk towards her direction and his head turned towards hers. She held back gasp as she looked at bright green eyes that glinted into the moonlight’s glow. She felt her knees quake underneath her, but she held herself together as the wolf approached her. He growled a few times as he brought his nose close to her wrists. If she even so much as moved, he snapped his teeth at her and growled louder, causing her to go stock still.

Did the perfume fail?

Moony was confused and his ears were pinned back, upset. He growled some and Rachel took a shallow breath. He finally huffed and went to a corner, curling up and looking at her from his paws.

She carefully made her way through the shack and found a wall. She slowly slid down it and crossed her legs to sit. Moony huffed again.

/Sad, salt, cry, scared./

“I’m sorry Moony. I thought I was brave enough to come up here.” Rachel sniffed as she pushed back her tears. “I’ve been on edge since I made it through the whomping willow.”

He pointedly looked at her wand.

“Mo energy to use it.” Rachel explained. “I wasted it all on the Samhain ritual.” She took a shuddering breath that Moony watched. "Hey, do you…do you want to come over here?” Rachel patted a space next to her. Moony’s ears flicked upwards and he thought about it. After a moment he got up suprisingly on two legs rather than one, and walked over to her and sat down, curling himself in order to sit down properly.

Her scent....she was a mix of human and something else. Just like human. But she wasn't like human. Artemis didn't call her name.

“You know something funny, Moony?” Moony glanced up at her. “I wish I was an animagus. I think I should try and study to be one.”

Moony perked. Human didn’t like friends turning to animals. Girl wasn’t a friend. Therefore, Moony was able to have a play mate. He remembered the girl liking wolves. She knew wolves. She knew his pack.

He stood up and walked away, but he was careful not to leave for long. Something nagged at him, possibly human, that she couldn’t be left alone in the dark. The dark scared her. Something unseen was chasing her. Moony didn’t understand that fear. The dark didn’t hold anything important. He came back once he found the tennis ball and walked over to her, placing it down.

“…Did Padfoot teach you this?” Rachel asked and his tail thumped wildly. “I get it.” She tossed it across the room and he ran across to grab it. “…I wonder…” She looked at the door of the Shrieking shack. “Moony do you want to go outside?”

His tail fell limp and hid between his legs and his ears fell flat like he was being scolded.

Rachel clicked her tongue angrily. “Tomorrow I’ll go to Hogsmade under the guise of meeting Mary and Timothy and I’ll open this  door for you so that you can play.”

Play?! Girl wanted to play outside. Friends could be outside too.He could wait for another moon for that.  He nudged the ball to her and she picked it up again. "I'll throw it a bit." Rachel promised. "But I can think of something else we can play."
~
“You can’t find the potions bottle?” James grew worried. Eri protected her bag like it was her life, and that perfume was a recipe that her family guarded for a long time. Raiden was holding on to Eri’s shoulders so that he could keep her from a freak out.

"I don't know what happened to it!" Eri shook her head, "I dumped my bag out and turned it inside out, even. It's nowhere. The only people near me when I had it was you, Raiden, and Lock. Do you think Lock took it? Why would she do that? Now Moony can't play with his friends!" she was really upset by this.

Sirius frowned, "Unless she wanted to meet him? Why, when she could go with us?"

"But why would /Lockheart/ steal a perfume bottle? Why would she want to go after Moony? She never said that she wanted to be on our adventure-" He skid to a pause. "Wait...we can still go see Moony." He looked at the guys. "We're going to go down there and knock on the trap door. If Rae's up there, she can toss the perfume bottle down to us. It might've been a good idea for her to do that, considering she might've not been able to fit underneath the cloak."

Sirius sighed, "It would've been nice to be prepared is all. I was thinking we'd have to stay under the stupid door again tonight, but you're right. We have to get Kit, though, Prongs. I told her we'd take her."

Peter rolled his eyes, "Of course you did. Well, we should try and prank her, as we're on the warpath. Scare her from under the cloak. Then we can go meet Moony."

"You had too much fun with that onion and apple prank," Sirius grinned.

"Come on," James said as he pulled out his cloak from his pocket. "We'll prank Kit and then take her with us. She does know that Moony may not recognize her, yeah?" He turned to Eri. "Are you going to come along with us tonight or are you and Raiden spending time?"

"If Lock and Bria weren't going to be there I'd say okay, but I think you'd already have a crowd," Eri shook her head, "Raiden and I can entertain ourselves. You go have fun."

"Okay." James said and tossed the cloak over himself and dragged his friends underneath. "Let's go find Kit and freak her out."

~*~

Bria was dressed simply and in dark clothing. Black jeans tucked into her black boots, with a dark green shirt under her black jacket, and her hair was in a ponytail. The forest could be hazardous, so she wanted to be prepared. Making her way down the stairs from her dorm, she heard voices. Was that the boys? Going slow, she peeked around the bend and saw nothing. Eyes narrow, she was glad the Common Room was dark, allowing her to slip out and around. Listening for the voices she also heard shuffling, so staying low she tried to get closer to the sound. That's when she saw a shimmer in the firelight. Reaching out, she grabbed the shimmer and jumped up, "I GOT YOU!"

Sirius' scream was like a girl's and he clung to James, "MERLIN'S BEARD!"

James's scream was also high along with Sirius' and when Sirius clung to James, James met him and clung back. "MERLIN FUCK!" He relaeased one arm away from Sirius' body. "We were supposed to be scaring /you/ Kit!"

"Well it seems I was thrwartin' your plans!" Bria gasped as she was bent over laughing at their reaction. When she caught a breath she stood up and wiped her eyes, "Oh hell...that was great! Good thing this isn't a normal night or we'd all be in trouble," she giggled, "An invisibility cloak, though? That's pretty wicked!"

"It's what we're going to use to go see Moony." James said as he took a deep breath. "Only problem is that we don't have Princess' Perfume, so...we're going to hope Rae can hear us through the trap door."

"Wait, Rae took the perfume to see Moony? Bria frowned, "We better hurry, then." She gasped as Sirius pulled her in tightly to himself and James wrapped them in the cloak. It felt cramped, but she was small and she didn't mind enclosed spaces like Rae did.

It took time to get down the hall, the cloak didn't usually like more than three people under it, but they managed to get to the willow and everything. Once in the passageway, James removed the cloak and he rolled it up, putting it in his backpack. She was excited, but she let the other lead. What would Remus look like as a werewolf? Was he a dire wolf werewolf or a human and wolf mixture? That in itself could go either way. He could be really fuzzy or he could be fairly hairless with subtle wolf features. She was glad that they hadn't reached that part in DADA yet, so she could let her imagination run wild.

As they were underneath the trap door, they could hear something crash and a loud scream. Everyone held their breath until they heard laughter. James could swear his heart was about to jump into his throat. He reached up and about to knock against the door when it opened just a sliver and a bottle tumbled through. He barely caught, shouting curses. The trap door slammed shut again and another scream.

“Fucking…” James hissed as he sprayed it on his wrist. “Here.” He handed it to Sirius. Another gale of laughter. He was still worried, this was…not supposed to happen. Damn it.

Bria spritzed the bottle on her clothes as well as her wrists, dabbing it on her neck. She wasn't sure what she'd smell like or if she'd smell like anything at all, and just wanted to be safe.

"I'll go up first," Sirius said as he popped the lid open only to duck as two bodies rolled by, "What in Merlin's name is going on, Rose?!" he called and he peeked again, finally able to scramble up. He saw Moony pinning Rae to the ground, but he was licking her face and she laughed and sputtered, "/Wrestling/?"

Moony let Rae go, and let out a friendly woof towards Pads. He recognized Padfoot instantly. "It's okay Moony." She said as she got up. She was going to have bruises blossoming from the many times he tossed her around. "We got a little rough." She admitted. "I thought you guys were going to be enjoying the fest."

"We did, we were." James said as he crawled up through the trap door. "Then were going to visit. Good god, we need a ladder." He stood up. "What the hell...your hair's in a bloody mess."

"Yeah, Moony's claws get in the way a bit. I should've thought of that when I came up here." Rae tugged at her hair. It was all frizzy and screwed up. She undoubtedly was flushed and if she went back to school, they'd probably think she was ravished.

"You might as well stay now," Peter grunted as he hauled himself over the edge, "We can all go back together in the morning."

"Ah, Moony, you were biting yourself again!" Sirius suddenly said as he came and took one of the werewolf's arms, tutting, "I'll have to wrap you up with my salve later."

"Um...guys...I can't reach," Bria called meekly from the bottom.

"I'm coming," James said as he slid on to his stomach and held his hand out to Bria. He pulled her up and groaned, "Seriously need a ladder."

"Ah, thank you, Prongs," Bria huffed a little. Stomach flip-flopping she wrung her hands in nervousness before she looked up to see the one person, the one creature, she had come here for. What she saw took her breath away. He was taller than when he was human, his limbs lanky, legs bent strange, eyes almost glowing. The hair on his body was scraggly, his skin was an odd grey discoloration. A grey wolf. He was...a haunting type of fascinating beauty. Would he come to her, though?

Moony growled lowly. Who was this new person? The other girl was different, but this one. This one didn’t have much of a scent. Yet he could see her. He could feel something inside of him suggest that it was familiar, but it wasn’t familiar. Not to him. This person was /not/ a friend, but she wasn’t an enemy. He whined softly, friend of girl’s? Friend of human? Mate? No….Mate belonged to Padfoot didn’t it? He whined, nuzzling Padfoot since he was nearby. He was confused.

"It's okay, Moony," Padfoot sushed, scratching behind his ear, "She's your mate. Go on, Kit's good," he assured. He motioned to Bria to come closer. He was glad to see Bria wasn't stupid and didn't come quickly, but slow steps so he heard and saw her take each one, the floorboards creaking beneath her.

“You know, the Shack isn’t very accommodating for all us in here. I can go through Hosgmade and open the door to the shrieking shack, unless you want to break a window or something.” Rae offered.

Outside! Moony looked over at Rae, tail wagging and ears perked up. Play outdoors! He looked over at Padfoot to see what his expression was. His ear flicked towards Bria’s direction every time he heard the floorboards creaked.

Peter grabbed James' sleeve, "Let's go with her," he coaxed, "Opening the doors sound like it'd be a good idea. Going into the forest would be fun. We can go to the river, too. Pads can handle these two."

"You're bloody insane." James sighed as they walked over to the trap door. He noticed Rae hesitate before she jumped down and he sighed as he jumped down next. Peter following right after them. Now it was just Moony and a Padfoot and....a stranger.

"I'll just be right over here. Now that you don't have so much of an audience, you can relax," Sirius soothed Bria, "Since you're an Empath I'm sure that you felt everyone's tension." He smiled and went to the bed, sitting down on it and watched expectantly.

What Sirius did was...freeing, in a sense. She /held back/ so /damn much/ that to have someone believe in her and tell her to do what she wanted made her smile. Moony was the purest side of Remus, and she didn't have to think about 'what would the wolf do?' when the wolf was /right here/. Grinning wider she stepped closer and she held her hand out palm-up so he could get a better whiff at the perfume and figure out what she was.

Moony sniffed again. A small hint of flowers, like a perfume that lingered on human skin. But there was nothing to hint at what it could be. No animal lingered in his mind that would smell like that. Prong was the forest, Pads was salt water and mud. Peter was grass and hay. The other girl smelled of companionship. This one though, confused him. He sighed, relaxing.

"You giving me the okay now, then?" Bria giggled softly and she reached out to touch him. His cheek was the first place she touched, and it was like that shock from when she first touched Remus in the Great Hall all over again. Warm...he was so warm, and she felt it spreading up her arm. Caressing his other cheek, she leaned up and touched her nose with his, giggling again just a little bit at how cold it was. Hands sliding down his neck, she felt her breathing become shallower, faster. The muscles in his shoulders quivered, and she gripped his biceps, marveling at how strong they felt. He was tossing Rae around like a ragdoll, but he could probably lift and throw Sirius or maybe even a large boulder or log. The muscles in his chest twitched as well as she continued to explore, and she found herself a little sad that Remus wouldn't remember this. It was overshadowed by...how bloody /turned on/ she was. He was a dangerous creature. Feared by all things magical, and without the perfume he'd be chewing her to bits. Fear was far from her mind, however. She just wanted to keep touching him.

He could smell arousal. It was salty and it hung in the air. He growled lowly, also feeling aroused in answer to her. His nose wandered to her neck, but then he suddenly jolted and backed away, growling. Human wouldn’t like that. Human would have his hide even more than he already did. He did, however, come back to stay close to her. Just so he could keep the wanting smell in the air.

"You two are so bloody deprived it's depressing watching this. Not you and Remus but you and Moony," Sirius groaned a bit, "Wow. I had a feeling but it's just more apparent this way." He had to tell Rae what just transpired. If Remus was honest with Moony and didn't keep him locked up in the cage, Moony wouldn't have jumped back away from her like that. Sliding from the bed he headed for the door, "I'm going to see if they've got that door open yet."

"I'll...I'll bring him with," Bria nodded, "It's stuffy in this room," she laughed breathlessly, and she stroked her hand up and down Moony's back, "C'mon, Moony, let's follow Pads. Don't you want to go outside? Have fun and play?"

Moony growled softly, letting vibrate against his chest rather than growling for noise. He watched as Padfoot tried the door and it opened. He could smell....so many different kinds of scents. Mud, soil, plants, grass, clean air. He nearly shoved everyone aside to start running. "Wait!" He could hear his companion yell and he turned around, growling playfully. The ground was softer here if she wanted to keep up the tumbling act.

"Your girl is fucking insane." James said as he watched them. "Just...insane." He rubbed his nose. "But I can't deny that this is a better idea. Next month. Next month we do the animagi forms, regardless. We're going to do so much with him."

"Wouldn't that be fun? Ha, can you see his face when he sees snow the first time, too?" Sirius beamed, "It'll be an adventure rather than something to huddle away from."

"He wouldn't know what to do with himself." James laughed as Moony got bored with Rae and walked back over to Bria, nuzzling her neck. "O-oh okay then?"

"Ah...right..." Sirius sighed as he jogged over to Rachel and put his hand on her shoulder while she had the really confused look on her face as well, "They're being denied," he said simply, "Remus has Moony locked up tight in that cage and now Moony is out for the night and he's with Bria, they're finally being honest with themselves. I mean, look at how happy she is. Even though she's telling him to play she's radiating like the moon itself. I know you're trying to get Remus to talk to Moony, but what else can we do?"

"Lock them and force them have werewolf sex?" Rachel suggested dryly. "Depends on what happens after this."

"/Personally/ since I only got two holes, not the slippery third, I'd not entertain that thought for myself," Sirius responded, "At least Remus can lube me up."

Bria had started to entertain Moony by starting a game of chase, and she ran passed Rae and Sirius, jumped around to the side, and then bolted towards James. Then she stopped suddenly and dropped down to the ground, only to have Moony launch over her and tackle James. "Aha!"

James let out a yelp and Moony licked his face in apology. "Goddamn it Kit! It's okay Moons. Not hurt." He was definitely going to have a bruise on his side though for not paying attention. This was the downside of not being animagi. They couldn't handle Moony's strength while being fragile humans. "Are you waiting for me to run?" he asked. Moony shoved him and he rolled his eyes. "Alright then."

Rae watched the interactions with them and she looked back up at the moonlight sky. Stars covered the black background and the moon lit up the world much like sunlight due it's fullness. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "I think it'll depend on my animal on whether or not I'd even attempt."

"Is that so?" Sirius arched a brow, and then he let out a sudden chuckle, "I can't believe we're talking about animal sex. Of all the things that did not come to mind as a topic we'd discuss. We're mad."

"Funny. I thought we were supposed to have a kink negotiation before we actually do have sex. Do you need my safe word, too?" Rachel asked coyly.

Sirius' face glowed in the moonlight, "I'm not into BDSM, but thanks," he shook his head, "We can still have that kink discussion another day, if you'd like."

"Prongs, come on! Play with him! Why are you so scared? He won't hurt you!" Bria grinned as she was lifted up into the air by Moony, laughing as she was tossed similar to Rae was, but she managed to catch herself so she didn't land badly. She managed to start running again, going to hide behind James and she used him as a shield, popping her head back and forth, growling in response to Moony's growled.

"Unless it's a broomstick Bria, I don't like the feeling of being tossed." James looked over at Moony and side-stepped. "She's all yours friend." He laughed as Moony suddenly tackled her to the ground. Growling and licking her cheek and nuzzling her neck. His hands were not quite innocently placed.

Bria gasped and her hands found his shoulders, gripping them and her body arched into his. If she'd lost the arousal scent, it definitely spiked back as she felt her body heat up to the point she felt like she was suffocating in her clothes, "M-Moony..." she whispered, only for him to hear, and she let a rumble vibrate in her throat.

"Whoa...whoa, now /wait/ just a damn minute! You're more than mad, you're insane!" Peter exclaimed, startling Bria and he came over...well, more like stomped over, and he pushed Moony off of her, "I'll overlook a bunch of stuff, I'd say, considering my friend is a damn werewolf, but that's just too much!"

Moony growled, but looked confused. What was going on? Why was his friend upset? His ears pinned back as he watched Peter for a while to see what he'd do.

Bria scrambled to her feet, looking frightened and Sirius swore her posture mirrored Moony's, with her tail between her legs. "No...ah, Peter, no!" he groaned. He was ruining it! Jogging over he put his hand up between them, "It's okay, guys," he tried to sooth the werewolf and Bria, and to Peter he said, "Shite happens, mate. They didn't mean to land like that, I mean really."

"It's /bestiality/!" Peter wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Bria was pale and she shrunk into her shoulders, "I...I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't have come. I didn't mean to start anything. Peter's right, I'm...I'm just distracting Moony from you guys. I'll go back through the tunnel." Sirius tried to grab her as she ran by, but she ducked him and disappeared back into the shack.

"Peter!" Sirius moaned, "They were making progress!"

Rae understood both and she stood up, shaking her robes out and walked over. Moony whined and she reached up and gently patted his back as she passed. She walked over to Peter and tugged at his ear, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to get his attention. "I wasn't expecting you to be the catalyst of all things." She rubbed her lips together as she watched Moony and looked back over at the shack. "I understand your discomfort though."

"Hey, I wan't expecting her to run away!" Peter tried to defend, shaking free of Rae.

"She had abandonment issue, Wormy," Sirius sighed, "She ran away because she doesn't want to lose us. She doesn't want to make us uncomfortable or do something that would make us want to turn our backs on her. Then that's what happened, she made you uncomfortable and then she booted herself out."

Peter frowned, and he looked at Rae, "Just how bad did I make all of this?"

"Well, that depends on Remus." She looked over at Moony. "You might've fucked up a good bit of it, Peter. It doesn't matter though. True love trials and all that. All I hope for is that neither one of them is dumb."

~*~