April, 1977. Grimmauld Place.

The days in Grimmauld Place number twelve unrolled lazily, in a monotonous stillness that Alya felt was almost oppressive.

It was the first Easter holiday the Black family had spent without the presence of their eldest son, Sirius, who had run away from home during the Christmas break.

Having spent most of her time at Hogwarts in the last period, where she and her siblings continued to meet, if only fleetingly and infrequently during the few lessons they shared, Alya hadn't yet had a chance to consciously process that new tragic reality of events.

Although Alya was fully aware that her twin brother had been banished forever from the Black lineage, at the hands of Walburga herself, a part of her still struggled to accept it.

Hence the return home to Grimmauld Place was traumatic. Within the gloomy walls of her abode, Alya felt Sirius' absence more than ever. A deep silence stretched across the flat's many rooms, devoid of the constant bickering between the cold and unyielding Mrs Black and her unhinged first-born.

An excruciating emptiness tore at Alya's heart every time her grey eyes lingered on the imposing family tapestry hanging in the living room. The small burn which had burned Sirius's name from the family tree peered cruelly at her from the wall.

The pain that had pierced her at Christmas, after her brother's escape, soon returned to haunt her. A pain that the girl was forced to keep in silence.

No one else among the members of the noble Black family looked disturbed. The lives of Orion, Walburga and Regulus proceeded quietly, unscathed by the absence of Sirius, as if he had never existed.
To make the atmosphere in the Black house in Grimmauld Place even more distressing were the cheerful evening conversations between Regulus and his parents, which took place during the dinners when the family gathered around the long kitchen table.

It was only a few months before classes ended and the summer holidays were coming; Regulus would soon be packing his bags to travel to the imperious Lestrange Manor. The boy was eager to spend some time with Bellatrix and her husband, Rodolphus, who had invited him to spend the summer with them.

An enthusiasm that was more than shared by Orion and Walburga, who had done nothing but pester their son with recommendations and proud comments throughout the dinner. All three fantasised about the prospects that were coming up on Regulus' way. If he made a good impression on the Lestranges and got into their good graces, he could easily cross the threshold of power and glory.

Regulus, for his part, welcomed with joy and respect the advice his mother and father lavished on him. He would do anything to make them proud and hold the ancient family name so high.

Alya listened in strict silence to that jumble of speeches about her brother's grandiose future and the duties of a good thoroughbred wizard, without taking her eyes off the meal she had barely eaten. Tumultuous thoughts crashed through his soul, like the waves of a stormy sea.

Apparently, the fact that the youngest of their children aspired to become a Death Eater and thus join the Dark Lord's evil coven didn't faze Orion and Walburga Black's good mood in the slightest. On the contrary, it even seemed that such a prospect made them even prouder. According to them, following the path of the Dark Arts laid out by Lord Voldemort would certainly lead Regulus to glory, enabling him to become an important and powerful wizard, capable of great things.

But Alya was not of the same opinion. Practising the Dark Arts never guaranteed anything good. She'd had a taste of that when she'd seen James's hand sliced off by Snape with one of his own spells, obviously steeped in dark magic. It had been a simple skirmish between students, in a ramshackle school bathroom, yet the effects could have been devastating, if Snape had been even slightly more adept at magical duels.

Once again, Alya was forced not to voice her differing opinions and swallow the bitter pill of apprehension mixed with submission to her duties as a noble descendant of the pureblood Black lineage.

Neither her parents nor Regulus would listen to her, only to risk triggering another furious family quarrel like the one that had occurred against Sirius the previous Christmas.

If Alya was to have any chance of convincing her little brother to back down on his plans to join the Death Eaters, she had to act at Hogwarts, away from Grimmauld Place and, more importantly, away from the cumbersome influence of her father and mother. Only then, perhaps, could Regulus listen to her and regain his wits.

Immersed in that gloomy and tedious atmosphere, Alya's Easter holidays stretched slowly, as if someone outside the world had decided to stretch the thread of time out of spite.
The days seemed eternal in the eyes of the young Black, who spent most of her time either in the living room loitering aimlessly with Regulus or in her room studying for the upcoming Potions test.

***

It was a dull morning, despite the spring season, and Alya lazed cooped up in her bedroom, pretending a busy revision session.

She was bivouacking on her bed, her back leaning against the finely inlaid and elaborate wooden headboard, her legs crossed and a book open above her knees.

Although the heavy velvet curtains had been pulled completely back to allow the morning light to filter in, Alya's room still remained in semi-darkness due to a leaden sky looming heavy over Grimmauld Place. The girl had to light a candle to be able to read without difficulty. The flame reflected crackling on the glassy surface of a glass jar, placed on the bedside table next to the bed. Inside, numerous white butterflies fluttered gracefully and playfully.

They were James' secret notes, which Alya had decided to jealously guard. Together with the dim candlelight, silent and discreet, they kept the girl company during her reading.

In reality, she hadn't the slightest desire to start studying. The little book she had resting on her lap had nothing to do with Hogwarts and its subjects, let alone the wizarding world.

Seized by a sudden childhood melancholy, Alya had pulled the Muggle adventure book known as Treasure Island out of her school trunk. She flipped through the pages absent-mindedly, not paying too much attention to the chapters that flowed before her. She plucked at the words, chasing after her favourite passages, the dialogues that made her smile. Even just holding that secret heirloom of hers in her hands brought some warmth to her troubled heart.

Irretrievably, her thoughts turned to a certain bespectacled and swaggering Gryffindor. Somehow that old, worn-out Muggle book reminded her of James. It represented a sort of bond that linked them closely in that secret reality they had created for themselves over the past few months. Alya missed the boy and their clandestine meetings intensely, even though it had only been a week since their departure from the castle. When she was with him, the burdens laden with pain and hypocrisy that permeated her existence seemed to lighten.

Alya could be herself with James, for better or worse. She had no need to flaunt the mask of the perfect pureblood heir she had always worn among the other Slytherin scions. Nor hide her darker nature, which Sirius so hated in her, such as the fact that she could talk to snakes. With Potter, Alya had dared to show her weaknesses, a risk she had never dared to take with anyone else in her life. And yet, James had never turned his back on her. Not even when, in an inexplicable fit of jealousy, she had thrown a miniature cauldron at him. Of course, James Potter couldn't be considered a saint. Alya recalled how much fun he had had in previous years in tormenting with all sorts of pranks those he didn't like. He and Sirius had gone at it hard, on several occasions. Cheeky and flawed, at least as much as Alya, James also harboured a whole series of little sins in his soul that he was certainly not proud of.

Yet he possessed the extraordinary ability to make anyone who gravitated around him feel safe. Anyone he admitted into his 'pack'. Or at least, that was the feeling Alya had when she spent her time with him. And the same must have been true for Sirius and the other members of their little gang. In his own way, James did his best to protect them, to make them feel safe, accepted.

Over the past few months, during which she had had the opportunity to explore James Potter's nature in depth, Alya had come to understand why her twin brother had grown so attached to the scowling Gryffindor. James was capable of a loyalty that was hard to do without.

Alya reflected on all that she and Potter had in common: the shape of the Patronus, the strong sense of family... Scratching beyond the surface of their respective masks, the Slytherin and Gryffindor shared unexpected values, although their lineages of origin could not have been on more opposite sides.

A smile filled with affection slipped across the girl's lips, recalling their last meeting in the Forbidden Forest. Alya chuckled softly as she was reminded of James' tumble during her failed attempt to teach him to dance. A pang of nostalgia impulsively lapped at her heart. Alya knew someone else who was completely incapable of dancing and waltzing. Someone else who, like James, was stumbling over her own steps.

Merope.

The sweet memories of James Potter dissipated instantly, giving way to the figure of the mysterious dream friend who appeared to Alya when she slept. Or, at least, that used to be the case. The last time the young Black had dreamt of Merope had been months before, even before Christmas, before Sirius and his escape from Grimmauld Place, before Potter and his kisses.

Before Alya had even discovered the existence of somnia videns.

For weeks and then for months, the maiden had waited anxiously for Merope to appear in her dreams, eager to tell her what she had learned about those ancient and unknown seers, who observed the reality of the universe through an enigmatic dream power. A power that the descendant of Salazar Slytherin and the young Black shared.

However, to Alya's deep regret, Merope had not been seen again. It was not uncommon for much time to elapse between appearances; in fact, it was not the first time the ragged girl had prolonged her absence, hiding in the shadows of the dreamy abyss.

Nevertheless, Alya felt an inexplicable restlessness. She still remembered the vivid feeling of fear and danger that had pervaded her spirit during the last dream in which she had met her friend. That sense of chilling inevitability had taken her breath away, as if something terrible was looming over their lives and she could do nothing to prevent it.

Alya wondered if Merope was still alive or if something bad had happened to her... An icy chill crept up her spine.

Instinctively, she closed the book on her lap, leapt out of bed and returned to the large open trunk leaning against the wall beneath the room's large window.

Since she would only be in Grimmauld Place for a couple of weeks, Alya had not bothered to unpack, taking out only the bare essentials a little at a time.

She dived to the top of her torso into the leather maw of the trunk, rummaging through books, schoolbooks, ink bottles, scattered parchments and writing feathers.
She rummaged excitedly for a few moments before emerging with the thin manuscript on somnia videns that Professor Ghalil had kindly lent her.

Alya had been anxious to return it to him once he returned to Hogwarts, so she had taken it home with her to finish the reading.

She hurriedly threw herself back onto the bed, legs dangling towards the floor, as she resolutely flipped through the pages of the ancient volume. She knew what to look for. As suggested by the table of contents at the beginning of the book, there was an appendix in the last chapter, dedicated to explaining a simple ritual aimed at expanding the dream consciousness of the eventual somnia videns.

Unable to accept the hypothesis that something bad might have happened to her dream friend, Alya became convinced that the only reason she could no longer meet Merope on her dream journeys was because she had not sufficiently developed her powers as a seer.

In fact, the apparitions that had occurred so far had been dictated by chance, completely arbitrary. Alya had never trained herself in the use of her strange power, not even after learning of it. And yet, both Ghalil and the manuscript suggested that in order to make use of it properly and effectively, the 'sleeping' seer needed constant practice.

Driven by a sudden spirit of initiative, Alya decided that now was the right time to start practising.

The girl opened the book in the appendix and eagerly read the passages illustrating the ritual:

Dream Journey

Before going to bed, light a white candle and observe the image of your face in an obsidian mirror for exactly three minutes.
Then place the mirror on an ivory pedestal next to a rough amethyst stone on a shelf at the same height as your head in a supine position.
Cleanse the room with the fumes of a stick of moon dust incense.
At the end of the ritual, lie down and close your eyes.
Your mind will now be ready and free to expand.

The explanation ran out in very few lines and the procedure seemed quite simple in practice.
The problem was the objects needed for the ritual. As for the amethyst stone and the white candle, Alya would have had no difficulty in finding them.

The shops in Diagon Alley were teeming with ritual stones and candles. It was the obsidian mirror and the moon dust incense stick that were the real problem. They were not items in common use, even in advanced magic practices. They were very rare materials.

Young Black had no idea where to find them. She mulled over the various possibilities for hours, but all she got was a big headache and no solution.

Too tired and hungry to continue pondering, Alya decided to give up. It was lunchtime, so she left the room to go to the kitchen with Regulus.
If even tracking down the materials needed for the ritual was so complicated, perhaps it was a sign that she and Merope shouldn't yet meet. Her dream friend would reappear of her own free will, as she always had, Alya tried to console herself, a little disappointed, as she descended the narrow staircase from whose walls stretched the hooked outlines of the severed heads of the family's old house-elves. A wrinkled and chilling stall, which Alya had not paid attention to since she was three years old.

The girl entered the gloomy kitchen which, like her room, was shrouded in perpetual darkness; the fireplace was unlit and only a few torches flickered from the top of the walls, the only meagre source of light so that the diners could not eat in the dark.

Alya took her usual seat at the long reddish wooden table, where she found Regulus already sitting composed, cutlery in hand. The dishes had already appeared on the silver plates, steaming and appetising, inviting one to taste them.

"Where is Kreacher?" asked Alya, noticing the elf's absence.

"Upstairs with Mum. They're trying to clear out Sirius's room and take all those Muggle posters of his off the walls. Apparently he's been indulging in the Permanent Sticking Charm." replied Regulus flatly, as he forked a mouthful.

Alya replied no further. She had no desire to talk about Sirius. At least, not in the terms of Regulus and their mother.

She turned her attention back to the piece of steak on her plate and tried to think of something else. The two siblings ate immersed in a dreary silence, until Regulus said:

"We haven't gone to Knockturn Alley yet! You owe me a birthday present, remember?" 

"That's right, I forgot --" Alya retorted, vaguely. The idea of visiting that shady neighbourhood didn't excite her at all.

"We could drop in this afternoon. I need a break from too much studying." proposed Regulus quietly, but insistently.

Alya lingered a few seconds before replying. But she agreed, despite all.

"Alright. I need some time off too." she nodded, trying not to let her reluctance show.

Going to Knockturn Alley just didn't suit her. However, she didn't want her brother to go there alone. Or, worse still, accompanied by Bellatrix or some friend of hers, perhaps entangled with the Death Eaters.

"Great! I'll let Mum know we'll be out for a couple of hours." Regulus said contentedly, giving Alya a grateful smile.

She returned it in the same way, affectionately.