October 31st, 1993

Sirius Black hated being unable to sleep. He woke up after an hour or two to the charming chorus of nightmares on repeat. He had recently caught up on the lack of sleep that had plagued him throughout his years in Azkaban, and the nightmares started up again like bloody clockwork.

He fumbled around in the dark, feeling his way through the pitch-black bedroom. He could hear Nikki sleeping soundly, her breathing even. Sirius' eyes started adjusting to the night.

Squinting, he cracked a small smile as he vaguely made out a strand of ginger hair that kept fluttering up and down with every exhale.

He missed hearing her voice over the last month, the mandrake leaf stopping her from speaking due to the risk of getting caught. Luckily she could pass off the silence as a consequence of losing a bet with her younger twin brothers.

Sirius reached out, callused fingers gently brushing the lock of hair behind her ear. He rested the back of his hand against her cheek, frowning slightly.

He couldn't wake her.

Sirius would rather die than drag Nikki down into the depths of his trauma.

Shifting into his dog form, he padded over to the door, using his paw to pull the door open. He squeezed through the opening, using his head to nudge it shut.

"Insomnia buddy?" Ginny Weasley's voice sounded from the fireplace, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stared into the crackling flames. "...It's pathetic that I'm talking to a dog like he can understand me, isn't it?"

Sirius Black and Ginny Weasley had been spontaneously meeting at the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room at two or three in the morning for the past few days, both struggling with the demons they had locked deep inside themselves, the demons they fought against at night.

Ginny shifted to the side, giving the dog room to curl up on the red and gold patterned rug on the floor of the common room.

"What's keeping you up at night? Nikki giving you chicken instead of steak for dinner?" Ginny joked weakly, assuming that the dog was just a regular dog.

'I bloody wish...'

Sirius nosed at her hand, worming his head under her fingers.

"I wish that was the only thing on my mind," the young ginger scoffed, hand absentmindedly stroking his fur.

Sirius stayed silent.

     '...How does a twelve year old have this much trauma when her parents are Arthur and Molly Weasley?!'

     It just didn't add up. But Sirius silently swore to himself that he was going to find out. She deserved to be able to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat scarcely an hour or so later.

Ginny Weasley didn't deserve the baggage she had draped over her shoulders, weighing her down, like he had.

     As the night sky began to bleed into the dawn, the pinkish orange melting away into the bright blue sky of morning, Gryffindor Tower began to rise, the students inside reluctantly rolling out of their warm cocoon of covers.

     Sirius Black slipped out of the common room with the first set of early-risers, dark fur now a known sight to the seventh years. He was the honorary mascot of the NEWT students.

     Halloween.

     He shook his head, ears drooping. No, he needed something to focus on. Not James. Not Lily.

     He paused, sniffing the air.

     Peter.

     Sirius stalked the scent, tracing it from corridor to corridor, floor to floor, until he swore that he had traversed the entirety of the Hogwarts grounds.

     He padded back into the castle, heading upwards.

"LILY SAID YES!"

Sirius heard his own voice through a whisper on the wind, responding to the exclamation James - no, the memory of James Fleamont Potter.

"I pity her, truly. Going on a date with you? There's only so much Quidditch talk a girl can take... and I actually like Quidditch!"

Every step, every single sound reminded him of James and Lily. The castle had been their home for seven years; there was - quite literally - no stone that they hadn't stepped on, no door they hadn't crossed the threshold of.

He whined.

Fuck Halloween.

Sirius tracked the scent of Peter Pettigrew's Animagus form - little shit, disguising himself as Nikki's little brother's rat - back to the common room.

Shit. There was nobody to let him in. And he'd rather get the whole revenge-murder-vengeance over with so that he didn't have to keep hiding out as a dog.

'When have I ever thought before I did something?'

     Across the castle, Nikki's knuckles rapped against the door of Remus Lupin's office, the ginger shifting anxiously from foot to foot as she worried her lower lip between her teeth.

     "Yes?" Remus said as he opened the door, expecting... well, he wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he knew it wasn't this.

     "I can't find Scruffy."

     Remus swore under his breath. This wasn't good. Sirius Black didn't have good coping mechanisms when he was seventeen, let alone when he had been locked up in prison for twelve years.

     "You're a werewolf, not a swearwolf," Nikki dryly stated as she rummaged through her bag for a journal, a quill, and an inkwell.

     Flipping the journal open, she began to scribble in it, her handwriting suffering from the rapid movement.

     ℱ𝓇ℯ𝒹， 𝒢ℯℴ𝓇𝑔ℯ － 𝓁ℴ𝓈𝓉 𝒮𝒸𝓇𝓊𝒻𝒻𝓎．𝒩ℯℯ𝒹 𝒽ℯ𝓁𝓅 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒽𝒾𝓂． 𝒯𝓌ℯ𝓁𝓋ℯ 𝓎ℯ𝒶𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝓃𝒾𝓋ℯ𝓇𝓈𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝓉ℴ𝒹𝒶𝓎；𝒽ℯ'𝓈 𝓃ℴ𝓉 𝓌ℯ𝓁𝓁．

     Bill, Charlie, Percy, Nikki, Fred, and George all had interconnected journals so that they could communicate across long distances. When each Weasley kid hit their OWL year, they were given the journal that Bill had enchanted.

     Remus rolled his eyes. "Have you checked the common room? Or the Quidditch pitch?"

     "He'd be avoiding the Quidditch pitch with every fiber of his being - it would remind him too much of James. Especially today."

     Nikki's eyebrows furrowed, thinking of where Sirius would be.

     The journal warmed up in her hands, writing etching itself across the page. The page glowed faintly, showing that either Fred or George wrote back to her.

     𝐎𝐢 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭 - 𝐅

     "Bugger."

     Stupid shit, Nikki found out later, was a complete understatement. Sirius Black had nearly destroyed the canvas of the Fat Lady, very intent on getting past the painting.

     "What the bloody hell were you thinking?" Nikki hissed under her breath to the dog at her side as the Hogwarts students trooped into the Great Hall for a sleepover. "You can't get caught!"

     Fred and George yawned as they sidled up to their older sister, eyes flicking down to the dog and then back up to her exhausted face.

     "Some of the first years are starting to get a little scared," Fred said dryly. "Especially the Gryffindors."

     Sirius pressed himself against Nikki's side, his head brushing against her calf.

     George added, "Homesick too."

     Her hand skimmed the fur behind his neck. "Good thing there's a very affectionate dog here to comfort them."

     His paw batted against her shoe.

     Nikki fixed him with a look. Sirius was defenseless against her.

     He was a sucker for the puppy dog eyes, which was ironic. Internally, he let out a soft sigh as he trotted over to a group of first years, flopping down on his belly.

     "He's friendly!" Nikki called over softly. "He's a big softie - start petting him and you'll be unable to stop."

     George muffled a snicker into the sleeve of his jumper.

     "Ginny... I'm saying this in the nicest way possible... but you look like you've gone a few rounds with the Whomping Willow," Nikki frowned, studying her little sister's complexion.

     Ginny smiled innocently. "Haven't been sleeping well."

     "You really need to sleep... and eat," Fred asserted, his eyebrow raised. "Anything you want to tell us?"

     "Not really..."

     The hesitation sparked alarm bells in Nikki's head. It was a patented Sirius Orion Black response. Something was wrong.

     "Oh shit look at his face!" George snorted, pointing at the dog that somehow expressed his guilt, resolve, and dread for the little vial of glitter being dumped onto his fur. "Have fun getting that out!"

     Nikki burst into laughter.

     Remus had to duck out of the Great Hall under pretense of searching the corridors for the mass murderer Sirius Black.

     Sirius whined. He had to accept the disaster that would be getting the glitter out of his hair later.

     '...Maybe this wasn't a good idea...'

     "Who's a good boy, Scruffy?" Nikki posed innocently, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she tried to compose herself.

     The human part of Sirius was unamused. The canine part of him leapt at the praise. 'I'm the good boy! It's me!'

     Ginny giggled at the look on the dog's face. "He looks torn."

     It took until one in the morning for Remus, Nikki, and Sirius to sneak out of the Great Hall into the halls.

     "What the hell was that?" Remus burst out, pinching the bridge of his nose.

     The dog grew, shifting seamlessly into the human Sirius. He shook his head out, trying fruitlessly to dislodge the glittery specks from his dark hair.

     "I wouldn't have needed to break back into the common room if the door was open!" Sirius groaned, dragging his palm down the side of his face in exasperation. "If you could just leave the door open once in a while so that I could start working on Hogwarts' rat problem, that would be great."

     Nikki threw her hands up in frustration. "That doesn't even make sense! The only rats at Hogwarts are pets - oh bloody hell."

     "Shit," Sirius swore empathetically, his head falling back and thunking on the wall.

     Remus' mouth fell open as he connected the dots. "...Peter's at Hogwarts, isn't he?"

     Sirius' chin dipped down in a small nod. Dammit, he didn't want them involved! It had gone badly last time when he got others involved; he was not going to be the reason for Remus and Nikki's deaths.

     He would die before that happened.

     "He's in the Gryffindor common room," Nikki theorized, letting out a deep sigh. "The Marauders' Map doesn't show your animagus forms, does it?"

     "You are going nowhere near him," Sirius said sharply, "it's too dangerous."

     Nikki folded her arms in front of her chest, arching her eyebrow in a clear challenge. "I'm already involved. Also, he'll recognize Scruffy slash Padfoot. He won't recognize me."

     "I can't lose you again!"

     His breath caught in his throat after the last word, the exclamation bursting out of the deepest part of his heart.

     Nikki frowned sympathetically. "You're not going to lose me. You know I can handle myself."

     The laugh that wrenched itself out of Sirius' chest was a dagger twisting into Remus and Nikki's hearts.

     "That's what I thought twelve years ago. Guess not."

     Remus sighed, a soft sound that was a melancholic twinge on his heart. "We all should sleep. We can discuss this in the morning - our emotions are running high and we'll say something we regret."

     They did not discuss the drama of Halloween night 1993 the next morning. The three were at a standstill, a gridlock, until an incident befell Harry Potter at the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor quidditch match on November 6th.

     Sirius also stayed tight-lipped over which rat in the Gryffindor tower was Peter Pettigrew. Nikki decided to figure it out for herself.

     Remus was done with playing mediator.

Word Count: 1,904