ALL IN ALL MANY WERE GLAD WHEN the rest of the school returned shortly after New Year, and Gryffindor Tower became crowded and noisy again. Wood sought Coventina out on the night before term started.

"Had a good Christmas?" he said, and then, without waiting for an answer, he sat down, lowered his voice, and said, "I've been, doing some thinking over Christmas, Coventina. After last match, you know. If the dementors come to the next one... I mean... we can't afford you to─well─"

Wood broke off, looking awkward. "I'm working on it," said Coventina calmly. "Professor Lupin said she'd train me to ward off the dementors. We should be starting this week. She said she'd have time after Christmas." "Ah," said Wood, his expression clearing. "Well, in that case─ I really didn't want to lose you as Seeker, Coventina. And have you ordered a new broom yet?"

James laughs, he was too amuse by Wood who ressemble so much like
him to notice that Achilles's eyes
were glue on him.

"Yes," said Coventina.

"Amazing! Let's win this match!" "I got a Firebolt for Christmas," said Coventina calmly, she was amuse by Wood's love for quidditch. "A Firebolt? No! Seriously? A─a real Firebolt?"

"He is actually very cute." Most girls
had to agree. Wood was cute and hot.

"So are we." Sirius pouts.

Coventina nodded her head before her eyes catch a grey one. Her eyes widens lightly. "tina─" She looked back at Wood. "My apology, I was in my own world." Wood nodded and make his way to Gryffindor's Common room.

Classes started again the next day. The last thing anyone felt likedoing was spending two hours on the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid had provided a bonfire full of salamanders for their enjoyment, and they spent an unusually good lesson collecting
dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing while the flame loving lizard scampered up and down the crumbling, white-hot logs.

The first Divination lesson of the new term was much less fun; Professor Trelawney was now teaching them palmistry, and she lost no time in informing Coventina that she had the shortest life line she had ever seen.

"Can't she choose something else? I am getting quiet annoy with all her nagging of death. Coventina is very alive and will always stay alive."

Some nods their heads with what Delphina have said. While some were still thinking that the woman may be right.

It was Defense Against the Dark Arts that Coventina was looking forward to to get to; after her conversation with Wood, she wanted to get started on her anti-dementor lessons as soon as possible.

"Ah yes," said Remina, when Coventina reminded her of her promise at the end of class. "Let me see... how about eight o'clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic classroom should be large enough... I'll have to think carefully about how we're going to do this... We can't bring a real dementor into the castle to practice on...."

"Are you feeming alright?" asked Aelora as they walked down the corridor, heading to dinner. "I have chocolate if you are still feeling down!" There was a loud and impatient "tuh" from behind them. Aelora ignored Granger whose bag fell down.

Aelora squeals, she love when it show her and Coventina.

"I wouldn't mind some chocolate, Ae." Coventina didn't have the heart to reject Aelora─and chocolate. "I will be away at eight tonight." The last thing she needed was for Aelora to be worried.

"Aww I wish my sisters was like her." Narcissa thought out loud.

Bellatrix and Andromeda couldn't help but flinch.

"Where?" Anastacius who was as always grabbing his book, he was walking while reading. "Night lesson." She replies back. "Be careful." He told her.

"Hm." She nodded with her eyes close
as they passed by the Slytherin court, whose kept their eyes on them.

"Oh, that's us!" Blaise grins.

"We can see that." Theodore rolls his eyes.

At eight o'clock on Thursday evening, Coventina left Gryffindor Tower for the History of Magic classroom. It was dark and empty when she arrived, but she lit the lamps with her wand and had waited only five minutes when Remina turned up, carrying a large packing case, which she heaved onto Professor Binn's desk.

"What's that?" said Coventina. "Another boggart," said Remina, stripping off her cloack. "I've been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, I found this one lurking inside Mr. Filch's filing cabinet. It's the nearest we'll get to a real dementor. The boggart will turn into a dementor when he sees you, so we'll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we're not using him; there's a cupboard under my desk he'll like."

"Okay," said Coventina trying to sound as though she wasn't apprehensive at all and merely glad that Remina had found such a good substitute for a real dementor.

"So..." Professor Lupin had taken out her own wand, and indicated that
Coventina should do the same. "The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Cub─well beyond ordinary Wizarding Level. It
is called the Patronus Charm."

Coventina grins.

"This is favoritism of a professor to her student! This shouldn't be allow!" Molly states with anger rising in her tone.

"Look who is talking." Aelora whispers.

"Can you just shut up?" Her brother, Fabian snaps at her coldly which was enough to make her flinch.

"Can you explain the charm further, aunt Remina?" She asked. Remina smiled at her, she was happy that Coventina was calling her 'aunt' because it was clear that Coventina didn't like much people.

"Well, when it works correctly, It conjures up a Patronus," said Remina,
"which is a kind of anti- dementor─a guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor." Coventina had a sudden vision of herself crouching behind a Hagridsized figure holding a large club. Professor Lupin continued,

"The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon─hope, happiness, the desire to survive─but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can't hurt it. But I must warn you, Coventina, that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it.

Not taking her words serious, Coventina ignored the fact that Remina thought that it would be difficult for her. "What does a Patronus look like?" Asked Coventina.

"I am sorry." Remina chuckles, her eyes on Coventina.

"It's nothing." The young Potter shrugs.

"Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it." "And how do you conjure it?" "With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating,
with all your might, on a single, very happy memory."

"Happy memory." The traumatised kids in Marauders and Golden Era thought.

Coventina cast her mind about for a happy memory. Certainly, nothing that had happened to her at the Orphanage was going to do. She hate that place. May it burn in the deepest cave at the Underworld.

"As it should." Anastacius mumbles.

Delphina looks at him, that orphanage must have been so horrible for the three to despise it.

Finally, she settled on the moment when she had first bake cookies for Aelora and Anastacius for christmast. "Right," she said, trying to recall as exactly as possible the wonderful, soaring sensation of her stomach.

"The incantation is this─" Remina cleared his throat. "Expecto patronum!" "Expecto patronum, " Coventina repeated under her breath, "expecto patronum." "Concentrating hard on your happy memory?"

"Yes." said Coventina, quickly forcing her thoughts back to that first happy christmast. "Expecto patrono─ugh!
expecto patronum, expecto patronum" Something whooshed suddenly out of the end of her wand; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.

"On first try?" Many whispers toward each othet shock. Yes, she didn't complete it but still.

"What was that?" asked Coventina curiously. "Something happened.
"Very good," said Remina, smiling. "Right, then─ready to try it on a
dementor?"

"Yes," Coventina said, gripping her wand very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. She tried to keep her mind on flying, but something else kept intruding.... Any second now, she might hear her
mother again... but she shouldn't think that, or she would hear him again, and she didn't want to... or did she?

James looks at her with a hint of sadness. Oh Merlin, help him to not
beat the shit out of Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Meanwhile Achilles was lost in his mind, he wonder how many way he could torture those pest that hurt his family.

Remina grasped the lid of the packing case and pulled. A dementor rose slowly from the box, its hooded face turned toward Coventina, one glistening, scabbed hand gripping its cloak. The lamps around the classroom flickered and went out.

The dementor stepped from the box and started to sweep silently toward Coventina, drawing a deep, rattling breath. A wave of piercing cold broke over her─

"Expecto patronum!" Coventina yelled. "Expecto patronum! Expecto─" But the classroom and the dementor were dissolving.... She was failing again through thick white fog, and her mother's voice was louder than ever, echoing inside her head─ "Don't you fucking dare touch her!"

"That's totally something James would say." Marlene smiles sadly, wiping a tear that she didn't see running down her cheek.

"Don't cry, you look prettier while swearing." Rabastan tells her with a
grin.

She blush then soon enough she grins
at him.

"Stand aside. Stand aside, boy!"

"Coventina!"

She jerked back to life. She was lying flat on her back on the floor. She groaned softly, looking at her palm hand. "Kill me." She murmured.

"I am the one who will kill whoever touches you." Antares whispers to her.

He was never afraid to tell her everything that he could and would
do for her. Because she doesn't have
to fear him.

The classroom lamps were alight again. She didn't have to ask what
had happened. She sighs, sitting up.

"Are you all right?" said Remina "Yes..." Coventina pulled herself up on one of the desks and leaned against it. "Coventina─" Remina handed her a Chocolate Frog. "Eat this before we try again. I didn't expect you to do it your first time; in fact, I would have been astounded if you had."

"It's getting worse," Coventina muttered, biting off the Frog's head. Remina looked paler than usual. , "Cub, if you don't want to continue, I will more than understand─"

"A Potter giving up? You must be dreaming, sweatheart." Euphemia smiles at her granddaughter.

Remina chuckles.

"I do! I won't allow some stupid voices to stop me from anything." said Coventina fiercely, stuffing the rest of the Chocolate Frog into her mouth. "I've got to! It's not just for a 'What if the dementors turn up at our match against Ravenclaw?' nor about losing the Quidditch cup! Its a need! For me."

"Fierce little goddess, don't ever give up." His eyes shining as bright as the brightest star, Antares's smiles catches many girls's heart while his belong to Coventina.

Only.

"All right then... " said Remina. "You might want to select 'other memory, a happy memory, I mean to concentrate on.... That one doesn't seem to have been strong enough...."

Coventina thought hard and decided her feelings when Gryffindor had won the House Championship last year had definitely qualified as happy. It was not enough. Right! The Laskos manor, the moment she passed with her family. She gripped her wand tightly again and took up her position in the middle of the classroom. "Ready?" said Remina gripping the box lid.

"Good choice, princess." Emrys tells her, his elbow on his knees.

"I know, brother."

"Ready," said Coventina firmly; trying hard to fill her head with happy thoughts about her family and not dark thoughts about what was going to happen when the box opened."Go!" said Remina pulling off the lid. The room went icily cold and dark once more. The dementor glided forward, drawing its breath; one rotting hand was extending toward Coventina.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

The voice inside Coventina's head had started again─except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio─softer and louder and softer again─and she could still see the dementor─it had halted─and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Coventina's wand, to hover between her and the dementor.

"Riddikulus!" roared Remina, springing forward. There was a loud crack, and Covenyina's cloudy Patronus vanished along with the dementor; she sank into a chair, feeling as exhausted as if she'd just run a mile. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Remina forcing the boggart back into the packing case with her wand; it had turned into a silvery orb again.

"I wonder what form would your patronus take." James says outloud.

"Oh, you wouldn't even believe it." Coventina sigh dramaticly.

"But I do." Antares smirks. Her patronus was everything, fierce, fire, strong and dominant.

"Excellent!" Remina said, striding over to where Coventina sat. "Excellent, cub! That was definitely a start!" "Can we have another go?"

"Not now," said Remina firmly, leaving no room for argument. "You've had enough for one night. Here─" She handed Coventina a large bar of Honeydukes' best chocolate. "Eat the lot, or Madam Pomfrey will be after my blood. Same time next week?"

"Okay," said Coventina. She took a bite of the chocolate and watched Remina extinguishing the lamps that had rekindled with the disappearance of the dementor. A thought had just occurred to her.

"Chocolate buddy." Remina squeals happily.

Sirius smiles.

"Aunt Remina?" she said. "Can you tell me what relationship you had with my m─dad?" She asked, cursing herself mentally for almost saying the 'mom' words.

James facepalms.

Sirius was snickering at his face. "M-mom? Did your son call you
mommy then?" Sirius laughs.

Remina looks away, hiding her laughs behind her hand.

"Very...funny."

"We were like siblings," Remina smiles at her. "I would scolded him when he caused trouble and he would help me with the boys who bothered me." She chuckles. "He is probably proud of you."

"Hell yes I am!!" James grins, his answers make people laughs.

"What make you think so?" Coventina looked at her. Nobody would ever be proud of what she do. Or what she had done. "Because I am." Remina smiled at her.

"Thanks, moony." James hugged her.

"Yes, thank." Achilles shrugs. He was proud of his daughter, the moment
she will be born, she is his pride.

"Thank you." Coventina nodded, her eyes watching the bright moon outside the window until someone entered. "Am I interrupting something?" Coventina looked up to find Antares leaning against the wall with his signature grin.

"Yes, you are." Regulus answers bluntly.

"No, come here, son." Remina smiled brightly as Antares walked closer toward them. He smirks and kissed Coventina's back hand, "I hope you
had adore my precious gifts, mea dulcis."

"It was... adequade." She whispered back.

"Liar, liar." Dorcas chuckles.

Remina cleared her throat. "Am I too much in the room?" She raised her brow. "Ye─" Coventina pinched Antares on his arm.

"Wow." Remina nods dumbfound.

"Poor you-!" Barty laughs out loud.

Delphina almost slap Antares's back head.

"No." Remina chuckled and sat on her chair with her arms crossed. "Now, go you both." Antares smirked at his mother before allowing Coventina to leave first.

"What a gentleman." Daphne teases.

"You mean a thief?" Achilles rolls his eyes.

Both were walking down the hall, the silence was too thin that it could be cut with a knife. "So, mea dulcis." "Shut up, Black."

"Hm─so where is your pretty cobra?" He placed both of his arms behind his head. His eyes shining with mischief while Coventina tensed at the mention of Aamon.

"How do you know about my cobra?" A hint of adreline rand in her body, soon enough, Antares found himself pinned against the wall with a dagger poited at his throat.

"Opss- that took a turn." Rabastan eats his popcorn. He wonders how many times he even ate that.

"Oohh, kinky." Marlene whispers to Sirius who chokes.

Coventina's hands were trembling as she held the dagger close to Antares' throat. She could feel his warm breath on her face, and the tension between them was palpable. But despite her initial worriedness, there was also a hint of confusion in her chest.

Antares looked at Coventina with a mix of amusement and softness. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he couldn't resist the temptation to push her boundaries. He gently reached out and traced the line of the dagger.

"You really are fearless." Thedore comments with a bored tone.

Antares raises a brow, his hair covering his right eyes. "Am I?" He thinks to himself.

"Using my own weapon against myself? I remember gifting it to you, so that you can protect yourself from others, not from me." He whispered.

"It's very easy for me to notice a cobra sneaking everywhere," he whispered, his voice low and calm. "And I know where he is and if you want to know...ask me nicely." He leaned in, their faces inches apart.

"You were asking fot a death wish?" Lucius asks him with the most disbelief eyes.

"No worries, uncle." He whispers, his mind still on the comment Theodore makes.

Coventina's heart was beating so fast that she felt like she might explode. She had never felt like this before, and the sense of vulnerability that came with it was both terrifying and exhilarating. She was not going to ask him nicely right?

"Slit his throat." Achilles mumbles.

"I agree to that." Emrys scoffs with annoyance. He wishes he had that dagger to slit the brat who touches
his sister's throat.

She took a deep breath, her dagger still pressed against Antares's throat, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, it was with a sense of clear- headed determination. "Fine, you arrogant snake" she said, "But only if you promise to do something for me."

Antares smiled, his eyes shining with adoration. "Agreed," he said, the word sounding almost like a promise. Coventina let go of the dagger and backed away, her body trembling with the adrenaline of their encounter. She was still wary of Antares.

Coventina watches the adoration in Antares's eyes. It was as if she was the most precious pearls in his eyes-

she probably was.

"Okay...can you please tell me where my cobra is?" She asked nicely. "Not bad, mea dulcis. But something is missing, try better." He tilted his head, amused.

Professor McGonagall shakes her head in disbelief. "I am too old for this."

"Black you little-!" Antares shook his head and chuckles. "Be nice, mea dulcis." She scoffed and took a seconds to relax herself. "Can you please tell me where I can find my cobra, Rubrum stella?" She smiled.

Antares chuckles and called out "Aamon!" Coventina gasps as soon
as she saw her familiar slithering toward them. She looked at Antares warrily before kneeling down to allow Aamon to slither on her arm. For some reason, she was not surprise that he was a parsletongue.

"Neither are we."

"Yep!"

"ᴍɪsᴛʀᴇss!" Aamon hissed softly, with an eyes close smile that is if cobra could smile. "Lucky brat." Thought Antares with an annoyed look.

"Tsk."

"Jealous of a cobra, Black?" Blaise teases him.

"Jealous of me, Zabini?" Antares smirks.

"Ouch." Draco watches.

"What is the favor that you need from me, mea dulcis?" Antares smiled, "Stay away from me." Soon enough Coventina walked away with her familiar finally in her hand though, she stopped. "Thank." She thanks him with a glared before continuing her way to the Common Room of the lion.

"Not in a lifetime, my sweet."