With the many drama that she underwent that day, she did not have that much time to try and understand what the hell it was that was going on. Why now? Why couldn't it be another day? Didn't she go through enough shit with Nicolai and Fred?

"Marlene?"

Aunt Marlene. Was he referring to her Aunt? But why? What did this man have to do with a family member of hers that she had never met?

Florence had never moved so quickly in her life, whipping out her wand from where it was tucked safely in her pocket. She pointed it at the man, her gaze not daring to leave him. He looked much cleaner than his photos on the wanted photos plastered everywhere in Diagon Alley. His hair was trimmed and kept, unlike his wild, frizzled one. But she still knew he was dangerous, the man who had allegedly made a narrow escape from the Dementor's Kiss.

Her mum looked wide-eyed, gripping the hem of her shirt tightly as her gaze went from her daughter to their seemingly unwanted visitor.

"Mum, why is Sirius Black in our house?" she asked, the fugitive raising his hands in surrender, Jane standing up from her previous space on the couch. "Florence, don't be ridiculous. Put your wand away."

The other man who still sat in his seat was no other than her Defense teacher, Professor Lupin, who had a stoic expression on his face, as if he had anticipated all this to happen.

"The hell do you mean I'm being ridiculous? He's dangerous. What are you even doing with—"

"I said, put your wand away. Now." she ordered in a much authoritative voice. Florence stubbornly complied, shoving her wand back into her pocket as she continued to glare at the criminal. He had an unexplainable look on his face, staring at her as if she was oddly familiar.

"Remus," Jane spoke again, however her eyes not trailing away from her daughter. She absolutely hated startling her this way. She knew she had a lot of explaining to do from there; but she wasn't sure if she was ready.

"Florence and I need a little time alone. Would take Sirius upstairs, please?"

But she needed to be.

The horrors of the past was something that Jane could not just bring up. Talking about it brought along tears, and immense sadness. She liked to lock the memories in a box in her mind, and just tuck it away forever. Untouched, but not forgotten.

Florence watched Professor Lupin nod, then escorting the fugitive upstairs. She was trying to fit him into the equation, however she felt her head hurt as she did so. Too much for one day, she thought.

"Dear, sit down." Jane had told her daughter, settling back into her seat as well. Florence moved with hesitation, plopping down on a seat infront of her mum.

The look on her face was a strong indication that she was having a hard time as well. Seeing as she was too drained to even argue her mum to telling the truth, she just sat there soundlessly.

"Sirius and Remus will be staying with us...for awhile." she had put it simply. Too vague for Florence's liking. Why?

"That's not fair,' said Florence, "You can't just tell me that we're going to aid in concealing a fugitive for the whole summer, not tell me why in Merlin's name we're doing it, and just expect me to be okay with it, Mum."

Jane sighed, "I know. But Florence you have to understand... Dumbledore asked me to—"

"Dumbledore? He knows where Sirius Black is? That's—That isn't making any sense at all. He probably hates the man , seeing as he was the reason why soul-sucking creatures roamed the school."

"It sounds absurd, dear, it really does. But he isn't who everyone accuses him to be."

Florence stared at her mother incredulously, eyes over-bright. What was she talking about?

"Then who is he, mum? If he isn't a fugitive who killed thirteen muggles and betrayed Harry Potter's parents that just single-handedly escaped Azkaban?"

"He was framed! Set up..." Jane said, her voice raised with an undertone of sorrow, "I–I should have known better, the Order should have known better than to believe that Sirius did such a thing to Lily and James..."

She had spoke the words with such familiarity, and Jane could feel the past slowly drifting back.

Blood, the prophecy, Marlene, Sirius, Gabriel.... Her Gabriel...

"The Order of the Phoenix... A society founded by Dumbledore, recruiting the strongest witches and Wizards in hopes of defeating Voldemort..." Jane flinched as the name rolled off from her tongue.

"Lily and James were part of it, so was Sirius and Remus... Peter Pettigrew... Your aunts and uncles: Marlene, Theresa, Patrick and Kurt..."

Her mum barely talked about her family before. There were a few instances in the past when Florence grew curious. She wondered if she had cousins, or grandparents, but her mother would always swerve the topic away.

Jane's eyes were filled with evident longing, clutching her hands together as she willed herself not to cry...How they died...

"It was a shame how I had learnt of my family's death. Your father and I were in North America with you when you were no older than two years old... Hiding away as we waited for the war to stop— your grandparents refused to let me be inducted into the Order... And with much persuasion they had managed to get your father to quit the Auror Task Force and convinced us to pack our bags and hide."

"It was a very cowardly thing to do, but they had told us that it was for your safety. And they were right. A war was not the best place for a young child..." Jane paused, her chest tightening in pain.

"And we just saw it, on the headlines of a wizarding newspaper. McKinnon family murdered by Death Eaters, House Burned with Fiendfyre. The way my siblings died without enough recognition as to how great they all were..."

"Sirius was distraught over Marlene's death. Your aunt Marlene hung the moon for him, and her death came two weeks after your father and I received an Owl about their engagement... You could just imagine how it must of have been for him..."

"Your father and I then decided to join the Order along with the few amount of people left. Harry Potter was born, Lily and James went into hiding and made Sirius secret-keeper..."

Florence had heard of the story of the Potter's betrayal a lot of times, but coming from someone who knew more about the war was fascinated, but awful, since that someone was her mother. She had no idea what she had gone through.

"...yet we no one had been told that they transferred the secret keeper title to Peter Pettigrew... James Potter's friend who didn't quite make his mark like Sirius and Remus did. He betrayed the Potters, framed Sirius for a crime that he would never commit, got thrown into Azkaban—"

It was in this moment that Jane allowed herself to succumb to the intensity of her feelings. Flashes of enigmatic memories began resurfacing, and her heart ached for Gabriel.

"Your father was the best Auror in the force, you know?" said Jane through her tears. Florence had heard about her father many times during her first year, her surname hauling in a few number of curious teachers.

"Ah, Gabriel Price's daughter, I see? Your father was a great man, a great Auror he was. Everyone felt incredible loss with his passing..." She remembered Professor Flitwick say.

"He was one of the exceptionally skilled Aurors entrusted with locking Sirius up in Azkaban. He himself couldn't quite believe that Sirius had the capability to do such thing..."

"A few hours before Lily and James' death was the last time I saw him. He didn't come home after his mission... Found dead on the Ministry's front steps, the dark mark drifting in the sky one last time..."

"He was murdered." Florence's voice came out small, like she was stating a conclusion and asking a question at the same time. Jane could only manage a nod, and soon she was in Florence's arms.

She held her mum close as she let her sob onto her shirt. Jane clung to her daughter tightly, as if she was going to loose her if she let go.

She had no idea, absolutely no idea. Florence felt awful, knowing the fate of her father which she and her mother had never discussed thoroughly. All she knew was that he was an auror and died in one if his missions, but had never anticipated it to be that tragic.
                                                                                                          ----

Emmy had left her dinner on her nightstand, which remained untouched. Florence woke up to a fresh new plate of food, deciding to eat as she heard funny noises emitted by her stomach.

Her head was spinning, even during the morning after. For some reason, she was scared to go out of her room, not quite wanting to bump in to anyone.

Florence eyed the protean charm that sat on the top of her dresser—that was another thing that she wasn't quite ready to face. After having the biggest hunch that her mystery person was Fred, then having him deny it to her face—but then hearing from another person that he was lying and it was actually him was quite stressful.

She was confused, as to why Fred would lie to her about it. Florence was almost certain that it was him—and she was okay with that. She had slowly taken a liking towards him (and openly admitted it to him, looking like a complete idiot), and it felt as if Fred didn't want it to be her.

Did he know anything about her beforehand? Did he have any idea who she was before they decided to meet? Why would he lie to her?

Florence admitted to herself that she fancied Fred, but after what had happened, she wasn't sure if it was still there. And if it was, she didn't know if she would even want to deal with it or if she would just leave it at that, untouched and unspoken of. And what about Nicolai? Would they eventually make up of would it be a permanent crack on their friendship?

Those were a few of the many questions floating about in her head right now. Fred was her mystery person—who may or may not like her back, Sirius Black and her Defense teacher were actually friends, Sirius Black was in her house, she and Nicolai aren't on the best of terms.

It was all too much, she didn't want any more surprises.

She creeped downstairs, seeing her mum, Sirius and Remus discussing something on the dining table. Carefully, and hopefully out of their sight, she snuck down to the basement, flicking on the small lightbulb which was the only source of light.

Florence pulled out a box, which was filled to the brim with leather-cladded notebooks, the pages tanning. They were her father's journals which were like storybooks to her back then. They contained all of his missions, the wizards he's hunted down. Jane once told her that Rita Skeeter tried to buy them off of her, because she was going to write a memoir about the fallen Auror.

But Auror business was confidential, and so Jane didn't sell them to her, nor she didn't want to. Rita write poison penned, and Florence was just glad that her mum didn't give any of them to the foul woman.

She didn't really know her father that much, and felt bad when she did not feel as sad as her mother did upon finding out that he was murdered.

She was much too young to remember anyway, much too young to recall memories, or to even miss him. Gabriel Price was like a shadow in her memories, not being able to picture him out completely.

Florence flipped through the many pages and notebooks, stopping at the last one, which had a lot of blank pages. She stared at, thinking of what else his father could have written in them if he were still alive. Would he have written about the her Quidditch games that he'd attend to? Would he have written about how proud of a father he was.

She wouldn't know, that was for sure.

She moved further into the basement, moving aside boxes as she found something sitting at the corner accumulating dust. It was a guitar—the very same guitar that she saw in one of her baby pictures where her father sang to her. Florence grabbed the instrument, wiping the dust away with a nearby rag. The strings were beyond rusty, brown rust sticking to the rag as she wiped it across the strings.

She plucked one of the strings, which emitted an unpleasant sound. The years that it's been kept away must have loosened it's strings, Florence leaning it against the wall as she fell back onto a stool, staring at it. She couldn't fix it with magic—not if she wanted another letter from the ministry. She would ask one of the house elves or her mum to fix it. But not now. She needed as much time alone as she could get.

////
a.n: soooo many mistakes. But I'm shaking with hunger lmao I'll edit after I eat. This chapter was way tooshort to describe Gabriel Price, though. Honestly, there is so much about Jane and Gabriel and the Marauders and Marlene that you need to know about. Fact, the idea of Scratches came from Jane and Gabriel—who were supposed to be characters for a non fanfic story.

But then I kinda turned it into a prequel of this. I'm still working on it though, but would anyone be interested in it if I did publish it?

-Denise