When one confronts her past, things never go according to plan.

They’re so much older than me, she thought as a brown-haired girl kissed a purple-faced boy on the cheek. Good Lord, purple faces! I doubt that soot will wash off their faces…and they don’t seem to care.  Witchcraft is frightfully bizarre. 

Professor Binns’s monotonous voice droned on inside Althea’s ears, and created the soothing sound of honeybees buzzing about in multiple beehives.Mmm…honey, she lazily dreamed—slightly licking her lips.

Everything she had been taught in Defense Against the Dark Arts suggested that the werewolf was a dark creature—one of the darkest of creatures—a damned soul.

Althea closed her eyes once more. So, this is my death, she thought as she tried to steady her breath.

Professor Flitwick was very interested in Remus’s travels, and even mentioned Althea’s travels to the Congo, at which Althea coughed as she drank her pumpkin juice—Remus casting her a knowing look.

“Wow,” he began, leaning closer, “that is a serious accusation to a Slytherin...especially with the lot he’s been hanging round.”

“Worse than last week when he coaxed the Fat Lady to change the password to, ‘Black is Brilliant.’”

The thought that she felt anything other than hate or indifference toward Sirius caused Althea to shudder.

“He is, but his hair is too perfect. I’ve never seen it move,” Lily replied, resting her hands behind her. “I like hair—”

“That looks a bit wind-swept,” Althea interrupted and smiled teasingly.

Althea stepped forward, looking eye to eye at him. “You hang round people that think it okay to kill her,” she said and waited for a moment for it to register with Snape.

"No, I had no idea,” she said and smiled nervously. “It must be a popular name…imagine that.”

“Imagine,” Lily said deliberately and raised an eyebrow.

“So?” Althea snorted, trying her best to impersonate Sirius. “There’s no law against it…yet.”

Periodically, he would stop as if in deep thought—either scratch his head or fold his arms—and continue to pace again. His pacing continued for twenty minutes; afterwards, he returned to the comfort of his bed, which found its way onto the Hogwarts roof.

“I think he’s more miserable alive,” she said, stroking the cold windowpane with her index finger. “Always like him though, to escape that way—so pompous. ‘Like Sirius rising from Oceanus, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks,’” she mused, pressing her thumb hard against the windowpane to leave a thumbprint.

Sirius laughed. “They’ll never catch me,” he replied, grinning.

“Lily Evans,” she said playfully, a smile emerging across her face. “Do you fancy James Potter?”

Lily remained quiet.

“James Potter, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team? The detention serving James Potter? The James Potter who has irked you these past seven years?”

"How many others were there?” she asked, forcing her bottom lip to tremble. “After all these years, and you give it all up for a scratch behind the ears?” she asked and covered her face with her hands.

Althea gulped at the thought of Sirius and his future wife (she was always so kind and wholesome and so absolutely wrong for him) at a Christmas gathering with Lily and James, which left Althea—always the too busy Healer—alone.

Althea rested her hand on Lily’s stomach. “At least when you sneeze, you don’t explode any cauldrons,” she remarked and felt a strong kick by the baby. “Bloody hell, he’s not going to be a Chaser, he’s going to be a Beater.”

“Duty as a godfather,” she teased and ruffled his hair.

“Look at you,” Sirius whispered, his moist breath warming her ear—Althea closed her eyes and smiled, “trying so hard to look holy.”

“Look at everything around you, Althea Rosemary. The Ministry is losing, Muggles and wizards are dying everyday; how can you expose your child to this?”

It was the second night that week that Althea dreamt of her mother’s death.

“Easily remedied,” she replied quickly and Althea’s eyes widened.

The man paused and smiled. He opened his mouth to speak, but all Althea heard was the static from a wireless.

At every meeting at Number 8, Althea built that tenuous trust between the two women—Althea an eager researcher of the Dark and Pulcheria a happy teacher.

How strange the bounty on her head was more than the price he paid to stay out of Azkaban.

Uproar of applause from the crowd and a few nods from Wizengamot members caused Althea’s muscles to tighten. The verdict would be read soon and she would discover her fate.

How could something so pure and perfect come from someone so broken?

Without another word, Snape turned and left her classroom. Lord, give me the strength not to blast him across a corridor and into something incredibly sharp and metal, she thought, looking up toward the ceiling.

“I dare say I shall enjoy this public display of affection—”

Althea raised her wand. “I won’t let you have the satisfaction.”

Snape eyed her wand. “Still protecting him after all these years?”

“Couldn’t you have yelled something different?” he asked quietly, not looking away from the broken tank. “Maybe, ‘Remus Lupin, you forgot your lunch’?”

“My God,” she whispered, covering her mouth, “I’ve killed him.”