"Looks like your Mudblood friend is in Witch Weekly" Draco says.

     "Don't call her that. Where the hell did you get that?" Ursa asks. "Mother doesn't have a subscription to that does she?"

     "Pansy." Draco replies. "She does which means you may get a letter later."

     "Huh?"

     "Rita wrote an article about Harry for it and it mentions you."

     Ursa pales. "Give me that! I'm going to kill her." Ursa skims the article for her name and sighs in relief. "Don't do that!" Ursa hits him with the magazine. "I thought you meant she mentioned that I hang around them, not that I was mentioned because Viktor sits with me. 'Insists that he has "never felt this way about any girl." Ursa Malfoy must be so hurt.'" Ursa rolls her eyes and shoves the magazine back into Draco's hands. "I'm going inside." Draco tries to stop her but Ursa goes into Snape's classroom.

     "How dare-" Snape starts until he sees it's Ursa. "Oh it's just you."

     "Don't feel like listening to Draco mock my friends while waiting for you to let us in." Ursa sits at table in front of Snape's desk.

     "You know you are lucky you are my goddaughter right?"

     "Yep." Snape lets everyone in before writing things down on the board. Ursa sees they are making a Wit-Sharpening Potion and finds the page in her book. She starts working and ignores everything happening behind her until Harry angrily sets his things down on the table, causing her to jump and spill her crushed scarab beetles.

     "Damn it Harry!" Ursa groans. "Sev- Professor that was the last of my beetles."

     "Get some from my stores." Snape replies as he goes to his desk. He pulls out a ring of four keys and finds the right one. He holds them out to her by the key. She takes them and Ursa goes into the storeroom. When she comes back out, Snape is at his desk and Harry looks angrier. Ursa walks up to Snape's desk and holds the keys out to him. "Keep them." He whispers. "I've been meaning to give them to you for a while. I'll explain what they are later." Ursa pockets them and gets back to work. There is a knock at the door. "Enter." Snape says. The door opens and Karkaroff walks in.

     "We need to talk." Karkaroff whispers. Ursa looks between them, noting Karkaroff's nervousness.

     "I'll talk to you after this lesson Karkaroff." Snape mutters.

     "I want to talk to you when you can't slip off."

     "After the lesson." Snape snaps. He notices Ursa looking at them and glares. She lowers her head and goes back to her work.

     Near the end of class, Harry knocks over his armadillo bile and Ursa rolls her eyes. Ursa goes into the potions storeroom after the bell rings to get things for more Burn-Healing Paste. She hears Snape and Karkaroff talking.

     "What's so urgent?" Snape snaps.

     Ursa peeks out the door into the classroom. "This." Karkaroff says as he pulls up his left-sleeve. Ursa gasps and covers her mouth. The Dark Mark on Karkaroff's forearm is dark grey. "Well? Do you see? Severus, it hasn't been this clear since—"

     "Put that away!" Snape snarls as he glances across the room. He notices Ursa peeking and Ursa jerks away from the door. She goes back to finding the ingredients she needs.

     "But you must have noticed—" Karkaroff starts.

     "We can talk later Karkaroff." Snape says before notices Harry. "Potter! What are you doing?"

     "Cleaning up my armadillo bile Professor." Harry answers. Ursa hears the door slam as Karkaroff leaves. A minute later it opens and closes again as Harry leaves.

     She hears Snape sigh before his footsteps walking towards the storeroom. "What did you see?" Snape asks.

     "I saw his Mark if that's what you're asking." Ursa says, avoiding eye contact.

     "I am."

     "Is yours..." Ursa trails off. Snape pulls his sleeve up to show her his.

     "Your father's is returning too." Snape pushes his sleeve back down. "Everyone's is."

     Ursa stops and closes her eyes. "He's coming back, gaining strength, isn't he?" Ursa opens her eyes and looks at Snape. "The Dark Lord."

     Snape sighs. "Yes, some how."

     "That's why you wanted to work on DADA with me."

     "Yes. He knew you were powerful then and probably knows you are still powerful. I know you were raised to serve him."

     "To be his weapon." Ursa says.

     "Yes. He is going to try to use you Ursa."

     "I know. If I wasn't a baby back then, he would have used me then."

     "I want to keep you safe."

     "Does Dumbledore know this?"

     "Yes."

     Ursa nods. "Good good." Ursa sighs sadly. "Severus, Hermione and Ron are my friends and Harry is trying to get along with me. He can't come back." Tears form in Ursa's eyes. "I'll have to choose."

     "I know." Snape walks over and hugs Ursa.

     "I don't want to have to choose."

     "I know."

     "I... I don't believe what they do Severus. I never have. I just got them back. I don't want to lose them again if they find out."

     "You will always have me." Snape releases her.

     "Thanks."

     "Now, why are you still here?"

     "Hagrid needs more Burn-Healing Paste again."

     "It's dinner time."

     Ursa walks out of the storeroom. "I'm not hungry."

     "Are you sure?" Ursa nods in response as she put the ingredients down. "Alright. I am going to dinner. Try not to blow anything up." Ursa smiles and rolls her eyes as he starts to walk out.

     "Wait what are the other keys for?"

     "My office, quarters, and this room. Only use the second on in an emergency." Snape leaves.

     Ursa looks at the ingredients in front of her and squeezes her eyes shut. A tear falls down her face. She wipes it and shakes her head. "Focus." She goes to the sink and fills a cup with enough water for a potion. She goes back and pours it into the cauldron before turning the fire on low. She repeats this with the other cauldron. She gets four blasting mushrooms and slices them, top to bottom, keeping them in sets of two. While she waits for the cauldrons to boil, she crushes the wartcaps into a fine powder. When the cauldrons are boiling, she adds two mushrooms to each cauldron. She gets a stirrer and stirs the first cauldron clockwise until the potion turns blue before repeating this with a different stirrer with the other cauldron. She measures three drams of Salamander blood and adds it to one cauldron before stirring it counter-clockwise until the potion is green. She adds three drams to the other cauldron and stirs until it is green. She measures the wartcap powder and adds it to the first cauldron. She stirs the potion clockwise until it turns red. She draws her wand and points it at the cauldron. "Frigo Flammo." A white light shoots from her wand and hits the potion. The potion turns light blue and Ursa turns the fire off. She repeats adding the wartcap powder, stirring, casting, and turning the fire off with the other cauldron. She cleans up her work area while she waits for the potions to cool. She grabs the ingredients for turning it into a paste from storeroom. She sets them down before getting a clean mortar and pestle and grinding dried octopus flesh into a powder. She checks the temperatures of the potions and moves to the other side of the table. She gets parchment, ink, a quill, and her Divinations book from her bag. "It shouldn't take too long to cool. It's cold down here. Alright what horrible shit is going to happen to me because of the planets." She spends some time on Divinations homework before checking the temperatures again and turning the fires back on. When the cauldrons are boiling again, she grabs a bottle with a dropper. "Alright first up, two drops of Essence of Dittany each." She adds the ingredient and stirs them clockwise until they turn orange. She measures and adds the dried octopus flesh powder to one of the cauldrons before stirring it counter clockwise until it turns red. She turns both fires off and adds natural balsam to both. She stirs both cauldrons until the balsam turns it into a paste. "Alright now it just needs to cool enough for me to put in jars." She goes back to her homework and someone walks in.

     "Severus?" Dumbledore says.

     "Still at dinner as far as I know." Ursa says.

     "Oh Miss Malfoy. I didn't know you were here."

     "Just making more Burn-Healing Paste for Hagrid."

     "I will come back later." Dumbledore turns to leave.

     "I know." Ursa says quickly. "I know about him."

     Dumbledore turns back around and completely walks into the room. He closes the door. "What do you know?"

     "I saw Karkaroff's mark. When he was showing it to Severus. It's dark grey. Severus told me his and my- his is returning too."

     "I am aware your father was not really under the Imperius Curse."

     "Oh. I know the Dark Lord is returning."

     "I trust you will not tell anyone about this."

     "I won't."

     "Thank you." Dumbledore leaves.

     Snape comes back as Ursa is scooping the paste into jars. "Dumbledore was looking for you." Ursa says.

     "I know, I ran into him in the hall." Snape says. "Are you done?"

     "Just need to clean up." Ursa cleans up and puts the jars in her bag. Snape grabs her arm and drags her out of the room. "Hey! What are you doing?" Snape doesn't answer.

     He drags her into the kitchen. "Dobby?" He says.

     "Professor Snape!" Dobby says.

     "Make sure she eats something even if it is just tea and crackers."

     "I told you I wasn't hungry Severus." Ursa says.

     "You skipped lunch. You are not skipping dinner."

     "Fine."

     "Come. Miss Ursa. Dobby is sure we can find something." Dobby says.

***

     Ursa sits down next to Hermione with the Trio at breakfast as the owls arrive. Hermione is looking up eagerly. "Percy wouldn't have answered yet." Ron says.

     "No. I got a subscription to the Daily Prophet." Hermione says. "I'm sick of finding everything out through the Slytherins." Hermione looks at Ursa. "No offense."

     "None taken." Ursa says. "I know you don't mean me."

     "Good thinking." Harry says. "Here they come." A grey owl soars towards Hermione and Lyra lands on Ursa's shoulder.

     "It doesn't have a paper though." Hermione says.

     "Good morning Lyra." Ursa says as she takes the letter and candies from Lyra and Lyra nuzzles her head. The grey owl lands in front of Hermione. Then four barn owls. Then a brown owl. Finally a tawny.

     "How many subscriptions did you take out?" Ursa asks as she separates the candies and letter.

     "What in the world?" Hermione takes the letter from the grey owl and opens it. "Oh really!" Hermione goes red.

     "What?" Ursa says as she looks over at the letter Hermione opened. "Ridiculous."

     The letter is written with glued letters from a paper. "You are a wicked girl. Harry Potter deserves better. Go back where you came from Muggle."

     Hermione thrust the letter at Harry and he reads it. "They're all like this. Hermione opens each letter. 'Harry Potter can do better than you.'... 'you deserve to be boiled in frog spawn' ... this one calls me a Mudblood."

     Ursa snatches the last one from Hermione's hand. "I'm gonna kill him."

     "Draco?" Harry asks.

     "Pansy actually. But the way it is worded tells me she wrote down exactly what Draco told her to."

     Hermione opens the last one and a yellow-green liquid smelling of gas/petrol gushes over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils. "Undiluted butotuber pus." Ron says.

     "Ow." Hermione tries to clean off her fingers with tears in her eyes. Ursa draws her wand and carefully points it at the pus.

     "Scourgify." Ursa casts and the puss disappears.

     "You'd better get up to the hospital wing. We'll tell Sprout you're there." Harry says.

     "Come on," Ursa says. "I'll go with you. Lyra owlery." Lyra takes off from Ursa's shoulder and Ursa stands. Ursa helps Hermione get up and walks next to her.

     "Thanks for coming with me." Hermione says as tears fall down her face. A few people look at Hermione and start to say something only for Ursa to glare at them. "Sometimes I enjoy people being terrified of you."

     Ursa chuckles. "So do I." The bell rings as they reach the Hospital Wing.

     "What happened?" Madam Pomfrey asks.

     "Undiluted butotuber puss." Ursa answers for Hermione.

     "Come on then dear. Let's get you bandaged up." Hermione and Ursa follow Madam Pomfrey. "You can go Miss..."

     "Malfoy." Ursa answers. "I would like to stay if that is alright."

     Hermione sits on a bed and Madam Pomfrey goes to get supplies. "You'll miss your class." Hermione says.

     "Meh it's History of Magic. Binns won't notice. Besides we're learning a little about the war and I have been taught extensively about it. Do you want me to start checking your mail for you?" Madam Pomfrey comes back.

     "But then you'll get hurt." Hermione says.

     "No I will not." Ursa pulls the candies from her letter out of her pocket. "Watch." Ursa holds them out in her palm. Ursa waves her wand over them and they glow green for a second. "Green means nothing is wrong with it."

     "Ow. Are you sure that works every time?"

     "Yes. My mother jinxes the candies when she tells me to share with Draco to make sure I do. This is how I check to see if she forgot."

     "Your mum jinxes you?"

     "Yes. Most of the time the jinx is one that makes the candies taste horrible if I do not share with Draco first."

     "Wow. I could never imagine my mum jinxing me if she could."

     "She knows I have a sweet tooth and hate sharing."