ALICE FORTESCUE FLOPS BELLY FIRST on Jo's bed one Sunday morning, grinning wide and dimples in her cheeks. "Care for a sweet, Jo?" she asks, holding up a brightly wrapped morsel of candy between two long fingers.

It doesn't take much convincing for Jo to abandon her Charms work and snatch it out of her hands, unwrapping the chocolate and shoving it in her mouth so quickly that she almost chokes on it. Forty-five minutes of studying alone up in her room and she hadn't gotten anything done. Jo figures it's better to just cut her losses. "Cheers, Fortescue," she grins.

"You look tired," Alice comments, taking in the heavy bags, the way her eyes are almost sunken in. "Getting any sleep?"

Jo has no intention of telling Alice, famous for worrying and doting and caring a little too much, that she hasn't been able to sleep at night. One word from her and she'd be rushing down to Slughorn's office, demanding some Sleeping Draught or worse, trying to whip it up on her own. "James has me out of bed at five in the bloody morning every damn day to go down to the pitch before classes," Jo tells her, leaving out the part that she's usually awake before she's beckoned by her brother.

"Take it he finally got you to go out for Keeper then?" Alice asks, grinning as she chews on the end of a licorice wand.

"Yeah, we'll see how long that one lasts," Jo snickers, and then turns towards her dorm mate with a coy little smirk. "What about you? Didn't hear you come upstairs till after midnight last night."

And from the way Alice lights up, cheeks red and eyes averted, Jo knows exactly what she was up to just the night before. "Surely I don't know what you mean," Alice dismisses with the candy still between her teeth.

Jo sighs dramatically, "I think someone was up all night snogging a certain seventh-year-"

"Oh shut it,"

"-and then when she came back in her room, giggled into her pillow!"

Alice freezes, redder than ever and whispers over Jo's rapturous laughter. "You heard that?"

"Alice," Jo says as her giggles die down in her throat, "I hear everything. Absolutely nothing gets past me."

The raven-haired girl tilts her head, looking at Jo with a devious little smile of her own. "Oh? You hear Jones is looking for you then?"

"She is?"

Alice gives her a shrug, suddenly paying much more attention to the tips of her fingers than to Jo. "Says she's got some good news to share."

A long groan falls from Jo's lips as she pushes her Charms book off her lap. "This better be worth it."

It is not worth it.

"Ivan Reed fancies you," Hestia rushes, a slight squeal to her voice as she beams up at Jo.

Jo blinks a few times, processing. "Reed? Hufflepuff beater? Fancies me?" she questions out loud, looking back and forth between Hestia and Emmeline, who are looking up at her with big, excited, matching grins. They're sat in the middle of the courtyard, cozying into the warm grass as the sun beats down on them. Jo is painfully aware of the other groups of students littered across the lawn, definitely close enough to hear.

Hestia nods rapidly. She leans a little closer and says, in a hushed and delicate voice, "Heard from Amelia Mildrup that he's thinking about asking you to go to Madam Puddifoot's with him on the first Hogsmeade trip, and she's dating Christopher Calcott, who's Reed's best mate, so it's a very reliable source."

Jo thinks of Ivan Reed. Tall, silent and blonde in yellow robes. They sit near each other in History of Magic. She recognizes his name from James's obsessive Quidditch notes but, other than that, there's not much Jo can say about the boy. "I don't think I've ever actually spoken to Ivan Reed."

This makes Emmeline roll her eyes. "Well, you don't have to speak to someone to think they're fit, Jo."

"Suppose that's true," Jo concedes, and then freezes in place. "Wait, so he thinks I'm fit?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Emmeline asks, and gestures up and down at Jo's frame. "You've got that famous Potter charm."

Jo bites down at her bottom lip. "Huh."

"Do you think he's fit?" Hestia presses, looking up at Jo with big, round eyes.

She pictures him in her mind. Ivan Reed, the one that exists in her vague memory, has brown eyes, blonde curls, and nice broad shoulders. Jo gives a shrug. "He is nice to look at."

Hestia gives her a slow nod. "That is the foundation upon which most relationships are founded."

"I dunno."

"Oh, c'mon, Jo!" Emmeline insists, lightly nudging her arm. "It's not like you have to marry him or anything. Just go on one date and see if you like it. Maybe a little snogging, maybe a little hand holding."

"Yeah, who knows? You may have the time of your life."

"And besides," Emmeline continues, "you haven't fancied anyone since Remus Lupin third year."

At once, Jo is flushed. She gives Emmeline a light whack on the arm and looks around frantically, praying no one of note is around to hear it, especially the tall boy in question. "Would you shut it?" she hisses.

"I'm just saying. Maybe it's time you gave someone a chance."

With a heavy sigh, Jo collapses into the grass, hair spread out all around her. She looks directly into the perfect blue sky. "I've always pictured myself ending up with a Durmstrang bloke," she contemplates. "You know, all brooding and manly, very Eastern European."

Hestia snickers. "Ivan Reed's about the closest thing to a brooding Eastern European bloke you'll find here."

"Are you joking?" Jo questions, propping herself up on her elbows. "He's a Hufflepuff. Reed's about as brooding as a tea cosy."

"Oi, watch there, Potter," Hestia chides with narrowed eyes.

"He is rather fit, though," Jo says again, letting herself indulge the idea. "He's got strong shoulders." It's the only thing about him she can think of to compliment.

"So you'll go with him then?" Emmeline asks, hands clasped together under her chin.

"If he asks I don't think I'll say no."

Her words are met with immediate squeals, giggling, and exclamations. Jo grins as her friends explode, taking hold of her hands and plotting.

"We'll have to pick an outfit for you-"

"-do your hair-"

"-and your makeup, of course."

"Alright, relax, yeah?" Jo interrupts, though her crooked grin is still prominent. "He hasn't even asked me yet."

Hestia leans forward and says, in a way that almost makes Jo nervous, "Yet."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jo finds herself hating her time in the Great Hall. It's easy for her to get tangled up in her thoughts when she's not wrapped up in her schoolwork, indulging in private, sweet moments with her friends. Among the bustle and the chatter and the rowdiness, Jo sinks inside herself, quietly mulling. Mindlessly, she drags the tip of her fork along her pile of potatoes, and stares.

Among the three muggles, there's another figure that's been taking up her thoughts, when she has a moment with them. Jo can't get the image of Regulus Black with red, wet eyes, out of her head.

He's almost directly across from her in his spot at the Slytherin table, between Rosier (who she hates) and Crouch (who she hates even more), and Jo can't stop watching him. She watches the way he keeps his back straight and upright, how his elbows rest on the table, his hands on either side of his untouched meal. She watches as Rosier and Crouch chat over him, both completely unphased by the way Regulus doesn't seem interested in anything they're saying. His eyes are fixed on the piles of food in front of him. He is unmoving.

Jo has racked her brain for reasons, trying to understand exactly what made him, the picture of stoicism and aloofness, break down in the corridors like that, rather far from the Slytherin common room, at that. Jo doesn't know much about him, she realizes. She knows all about his family, their aptitude for cruelty and their primeval beliefs. She knows all about his mates, the way they spit cruel words and hexes at her friends, how they seem to have already pledged their loyalty to one side of the war. And Jo knows more than she ever hoped to about his brother. But she doesn't know a thing about Regulus Black.

Sirius doesn't talk about him, and Jo's never dared, or even thought to ask about him. Regulus Black acts like he's above it all. He stalks silently through the halls, tall frame looming and foreboding. He seems wholly disinterested in the harassment his friends take part in, though completely unaffected by the way they participate in it. Jo has never seen him smile, never seen him flinch or laugh or anything.

But she's seen him cry.

Jo doesn't notice the way Dorcas has started tossing her concerned looks, or the way Alice has been subtly trying to drag her into whatever conversation she's having. She does notice, however, when Regulus Black lifts his head and meets her gaze.

She thinks, momentarily, that she should look away, that she's been caught staring and perhaps she should feel a tinge of shame. But she doesn't. She doesn't back down, and there's something about the depth of his grey eyes that has her transfixed, even from afar. Jo doesn't look away, and Regulus doesn't flinch. It isn't until Dorcas is clapping her hands in front of Jo's face that she snaps out of it, shaking her head and turning towards her friend, brown eyes wide. "Alright, Jo?" Dorcas asks, and Jo pretends not to notice the way her and Alice exchange hurried looks.

Jo shakes her head. "I'm actually not feeling that well," she lies, and behinds to stand. "Meet you back in the dorm?" She doesn't wait for their answers before she's rushing out of the Great Hall.

The corridors are empty, and the echoes of Jo's heels against the floor are ringing in her ears. She doesn't know what's gotten into her, but that sinking feeling, the one she had on the platform, comes back in full, settling heavy in the pit of her gut.

And she's so wrapped up in it, consumed by the feeling that's gnawing away at her, that she doesn't notice the second set of footsteps trailing behind her, bouncing off the walls.

"Potter!"

Jo whirls around, hair spinning with her as she turns towards Regulus, watching him taking long strides towards her. She's surprised to see him there, to see him towering over her. And he doesn't stop until he's just a few inches away, shooting quick looks over both of his shoulders. "Potter," he repeats, looking down at her with an impossibly composed expression, "a word?"

Jo swallows, unsure of the way she's feeling. "Yes?"

"Why were you staring at me?" he demands of her, intensity in his eyes and he refuses to look anywhere but directly at her.

"I wasn't staring at you," Jo counters quickly, though it's a boldfaced lie. It's the best she can do, at the moment.

Regulus doesn't let up, and takes a small step towards her. "Yes, you were. I saw you."

"Maybe you imagined it," Jo offers him with a passive shrug, staring back up at him defiantly.

"I didn't imagine it," he insists, and Jo can't explain the way her heart is hammering in her chest, mouth dry. "You were looking at me like I'm wounded. "

Jo tilts her head. "Are you?"

"I don't need your pity, Potter."

"Then don't take it."

"Can you," Regulus starts, and pauses to take another quick look behind him, to flash his eyes over Jo's head, before he crouches down, leaning closer to her eye level, and whispers, "can you just forget about the other night?"

She thinks, in all honesty, that it's not something that she can forget, that she doesn't have the capability to. But she doesn't feel inclined to offer that information up. "Consider it forgotten."

"Good. Alright," Regulus huffs, and straightens out, large, veiny hands smoothing out the front of his robes. "And, well, thank you."

Jo furrows her brow. "Thank you?" she repeats back to him, unsure if she heard him right, certain that she couldn't have.

Regulus gives her a curt nod, turning away from her and says, "For...checking in."

Jo stares after him as he turns fully, back to her as he strides away. "You're welcome," she says quietly, and far too late for him to hear.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

There is an unbearably bright light that wakes Jo up at some ungodly hour. It burns behind her closed eyelids, and she turns, desperate to escape it, but it follows her. With a low groan, Jo buries her face in her pillow.

There is loud shuffling across the room, and from her own bed, Dorcas grumbles, "Get rid of that thing, Potter," and Jo knows that she has no option. It is, of course, that time of month.

Sluggishly, Jo pushes herself off of her bed and stretches her limbs, slowly peeling her eyes to find, as she suspected, a bright stag Patronus standing in the middle of her room. If it was made of something solid, Jo would've tossed something at it. But instead, she reaches down under her bed and pulls out a newly stocked healing kit. When she stands again, the Patronus is staring at her expectantly. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she says in a low voice, and makes her way out of her dorm.

It's a sticky sort of dusk out, the moon kept hidden as the sky gets ready to greet the sun. The walk from her dorm to her brothers is, as it always is, long. Her limbs are aching, from the lack of sleep and from all those extra hours James has been making her put in at the pitch. Her movements are slow and exaggerated. But when she finally arrives and sees the sorry state that the three boys are in, it sobers her up quickly. "Rough night?" Jo questions, knowing the answer as she drops her bag on the floor.

"First night back's always the hardest," her brother answers. He is slumped on his bed, unmoving and staring up at the ceiling. Sirius and Peter, it seems, didn't even make it to their own beds, as they sit, limp and leaning against each other, on the end of James's bed, right by his feet.

"Right, who got it the worst, then?" Jo asks, pulling her wand out of her back pocket.

"Peter," Sirius answers, almost too quickly. "He got stepped on."

With a slight nudge, Sirius shoves Peter towards Jo. The shorter boy practically crawls towards her. Jo eyes him. "Did you really?"

"Yeah, by your stupid brother," he answers, and offers up his arm to Jo for examination. She drags her fingers across his bare skin, gentle and slow, feeling the way the bones in his arm go crooked. She takes out her wand and replicates the movement again, casting a quick numbing spell. "Doesn't pay any mind to where he's stomping those giant hooves."

Jo takes a momentary pause from her healing work to scold her brother. "Four broken bones," she relays back to him. "Really James?"

"It was an accident!"

She just shakes her head, returning her attention back to Peter. She's a little more forceful now as she tries to find the breaks, kneading her thumb into his flesh. "Remus is down with Pomfrey then?"

"Yeah, and he's not looking too bad," James snaps, "so hurry up and fix us all before he gets back up here and sees."

She doesn't take it personally, James's shortness with her. The full moons do this to him. She's seen it happen plenty of times before. "Now that's no way to talk to your little sister while she's healing us at five in the bloody morning, is it Prongs?" Peter shoots back for her, careening his head around to get a good look at James.

"Yeah, Prongs," Sirius offers half-heartedly, "be nice to your sister."

Jo taps her wand to Peter's arm. "Brackium Emendo," she says in a hushed voice, watching as his bones straighten out under his skin. It's a sight that used to make her nauseous, but she's grown used to it by now. "Right then, who's next?"

Wordlessly, Sirius rolls off of James's bed, and lifts the loose sweater that hands off his body. Jo doesn't flinch at the three, long cuts that run from his ribs down to his hip bone. She studies them, lips pressed together and then pats the empty spot on the floor next to her. Sirius makes no protest as he lies beside her, tilted on his side to give her clear access to his wounds.

"They're shallow, won't scar," Jo notes as she leans in closer, getting a better look. "James, fetch me some dittany and Wound Cleaning Potion, will you?"

No one speaks as James does what he's told, pushing himself off the bed and fishing through his sister's potions bag. There's this still calmness between them all, something only possible with this lot in moments like this. Vials clink together as James searches, and Jo watches Sirius's chest rises and falls, small drops of blood leaking through various spots in his wounds.

James hands her two vials, one a deep purple, the other thick, brown-tinted oil. Jo is quick to apply a thin layer of the Wound Cleaning Potion all over Sirius's cuts.

His skin smokes and stings, and there's a sharp hiss that comes from Sirius. "Oh relax, you knew what was coming."

James is still rummaging through her potions. "You got any Pepper-Up Potion in here?"

"Should be in there. Share it," she instructs. And tears her eyes away from Sirius for a moment to see her older brother staring into her bag with an expression of deep concentration. "You alright, James?"

""M fine," he answers quickly, dismissively, and looks up to give his little sister a warm look, watching as her fingers work quickly against Sirius's torso. "You'll be a good Healer, Josie."

The unexpected comment makes her falter. "Thanks."

"Though you'd probably be a better Keeper, if I'm being honest."

Jo rolls her eyes but says nothing as the morning sun begins to rise through their windows.