Welcome to my new story. My first Harry Potter story. Truthfully, I wrote this one several years ago and I've just found it now. It was written as my reaction to the happenings of Ootp, because I'm still in denial of everything happening in there;) This story starts in summer of Harry's third year and goes on from then. The pairing is Sirius/OC, there will be other ships eventually, mostly canon though.

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to J.; only my OC is mine;)

It was a bright summer morning. The sun was just starting to shine on the tops of trees and the roofs of near houses were glistening with dewdrops. As it was an end of summer, the air in the morning was fresh. The quietness of the still sleeping village was only disturbed by a soft 'pop', significant for Apparation. Suddenly, there was a person standing on the meadow just behind the village. It was the strangest person imaginable. For one, the woman had long hair of rather undefinable colour. Most of the time it seemed to be black but if you looked closer you could see it was very dark purple, however, in the sunshine her hair got a very dark reddish colour. However all the three colours perfectly matched her deep blue-green eyes. But her hair wasn't the most strenge thing about her; it was the fact that she was dressed in robes.

For a while she was just standing, looking around with a strange pensive look. It had been quite a long time since Natalie was here. Then, as if with a new determination, she headed to a nearby house, situated on the very end of the village, somewhat separated from the rest of the neighborhood.

Briskly, she crossed the lawn, not caring about the hem of her robe getting wet by morning dew and several times she knocked on the door, rather harshly, although unintentionally. But after a few minutes, when nothing happened, she sighed and banged on the door again. This time, she could hear a commotion inside and she cringed a bit.

Finally, the door slowly opened, revealing a sleepy-looking man in a shabby robe. Although still young, the face of Remus Lupin was ghastly pale, only pointing out the dark bags under his eyes. His hair was now tousled and was decorated by even more greyish hair than Natalie remembered him having. Any other time Natalie wouldn't have dreamt about waking Remus at six in the morning after full moon but the matter she came with was rather urgent.

"Natalie?" Remus said when he recognized the witch before him "What are you doing here?" he asked then a little apprehensively, but still with always so significant kindness.

"Have you heard yet?" she barked sharply instead of a greeting. At that, Lupin raised his eyebrows. Sure, he hadn't seen her in a long time but this…anxiety; it wasn't like her at all.

"Heard what?"

Instead of an answer, Natalie pulled out something from the pocket of her robes, which appeared to be a newspaper. She opened it and held it in front of Remus' face. When he managed to focuse on the page, his eyes went wide. A photo of Sirius Black was lazily blinking at him from the front page of the Prophet, and a big headline above was announcing his escape from Azkaban.

"Oh Merlin" Remus whispered and took the newspaper from Natalie's hand to read the article. In the meantime, Natalie stepped inside of Remus' house and closed the door behind them, immediately allowing the dimness spill around the place, but it surely didn't seem to bother Remus, who was still engrossed in the article. When Natalie looked around, she looked around the place her friend called home. The window-shutters were closed so the room was lit just by a dim glow of a few candles and a dying fire from the fireplace. As shabby as the place was, it wasn't particularly dirty and frankly, Natalie wasn't surprised by this fact. Remus had never been a slob, right the opposite, actually.

'Some things don't change.' she thought with a smile. Remus's house was indeed shabby, the furniture was old and scarce but the whole cottage was actually homey.

"I can't believe it" Remus said, indicating he had finished the article and Natalie turned her attention to him again.

"What are we going to do?" she asked him

"Natalie, we can't do anything" he said quietly and when she looked at the floor he raised his eyebrow "What, you weren't thinking of looking for him, where you?" he assured himself. Surely, she wasn't that stupid but he asked anyway.

"What? No, of course not." Natalie said quickly but stil a bit sadly "I just…do you think he will show up?" she asked and Lupin seemed to think about it for a while.

"I don't know. But frankly, I would be surprised if he did. Sirius isn't a fool, he knows it would be too dangerous"

"It wouldn't be at my place" Natalie murmured but then she looked up again "You still believe he did it, don't you?"

"Yes" Remus answered and then sighed. "Natalie, Peter's dead. There were many witnesses; all of them having seen Sirius murder him. What else do you need to believe he comitted the murders?"

"Nothing because I know he didn't" Natalie said defiantly. Remus was already beginning to answer when Natalie raised her hand to stop him "No, Remus. This is the reason we haven't talked to each other for five years. Don't you think we've argued argued way too much already?" she said, her eyes begging him to agree and he did. She was right, they always used to be friends but after James and Lily were killed and Sirius taken to Azkaban, they just weren't the same. Everytime one of them remembered either James and Lily or Sirius, they fought over Sirius' guilt and Remus shuddered at the memory of their very last fight which had led to a loss of contact for the next five years.

"You're right. And I'm sorry, you have a right to believe whatever you want. I'm sorry about the things I said" he said then with a sorrowful smile.

"I'm sorry, too. I shoudn't have said that you're-" Natalie said but Remus stopped her with a raised hand before she could finish her sentence.

"Apology accepted but you don't have to repeat it" he said and Natalie smiled. Then, without any warning she hugged him tightly. Both Remus and Natalie were happy to have back at least one friend.

Flashback

Until the third year of Hogwarts, Natalie Crane was just a plain girl with frizzy hair and glasses. She wasn't the most favourite person in her class, nor the most hated one. She was a Griffindor and a friend with Lily Evans but it wasn't as if they were best friends, they just shared the same dormitory and got along well. However, her social status wasn't concerning Natalie at all. She was happy just as she was, giving all her effort into studies, although her grandparents were always telling her to relax for a bit as well. From the age of two, Natalie had been living with her grandparents because both her parents had tragically died during an accident. Both her parents and grandparents were muggles and as a Muggle-born Natalie always felt she had to study harder to be equal to the 'pure bloods'. Although she personally didn´t give a damn about who´s a pure blood and who´s not, she knew very well that some kids from magical families were looking down at Muggle-borns.

Natalie and Lily were in the same year as the infamous Marauders. But as unbelievable as it was in the same class, the four pranksters didn't even know she existed and Natalie didn't have any intention to let them know as this fact had been sparing her many pranks from the boys. But in the third year, this was about to change very quickly…

It was just after a morning Potions lesson and so far, Natalie was having a bad day. It had started with a broken alarm clock and now in the Entrance hall she remembered she had forgotten her Potions book in the classroom. With a frustrated sigh, she ran to the dungeons again, determined to get her book as quickly as she could so she would be able to get to the Great Hall just in time for lunch. As she was dashing down the corridor to the Potions classroom, three blurred shapes passed her in opossite direction. However, there was fourth person running against her and this time, she wasn't so lucky - both she and that mysterious person literally ran into each other. With a loud thump she fell on the hard floor of the dungeon, bumped her elbow and all her books scattered around her. She shook her head to get rid of the dizzyness and finally looked whom had she collided with.

"Oh Merlin, are you alright?" said a boy with light braun hair and blue tired-looking eyes.

"Uh, yeah, I am" she said a little shakily but then she heard another voice

"Remus, come on!" another boy shouted and when Natalie looked around she saw a boy with jet-black hair sticking in all directions, who she knew as James Potter. The two remaining boys were standing behind him but all of them were almost at the end of the hallway. Remus seemed to recover from the shock and hastily began to gather her scattered books.

"You're Natalie Crane, aren't you?" he said quickly, but not really looking at her as he was frantically scooping up her books into his arms. He didn't even wait for her answer "Listen, you really don't want to be in this hallway right now. Come on, quickly!" he said, helped her get up and with her books still in his hands he hastily led her out of the dungeons.

"What? Wait, I need to go there!" Natalie protested as he dragged her

"No, trust me, you don't. Not now"

"Why not?" she asked

"We put a firecracker into Filch's office and we just happen to know he has a confiscated stash of Dungbombs in there." Remus explained and Natalie couldn't help but chuckle when she imagined the look on Filch's face when he would find his office full of Dungbombs and flying firecracker. Remus just gave her a surprised side-glance but didn't say anything. Just when they were out of the dungeons, they stopped running, almost colliding with other three Marauders, who were curiously eying Natalie and Remus.

"Here are your books. Once again, sorry for bumping into you." he said and James and Sirius sniggered. Remus gave them a quick glare but Natalie didn't seem to hear them.

"That's alright. Thanks for the warning. I guess I'll see you later." she said and headed to the Great Hall, only catching as James and Sirius grilled Remus with questions.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing, I just couldn't let her there"

"Why not? Would be even more fun" Sirius said. Natalie didn't hear more as she entered the Great Hall. She just shook her head – typical Marauders…

Next week passed without another encounter with the Marauders, that is… until Friday. She just came for the dinner and without thinking, she took the only free spot, which just so happened to be next to Remus. James was sitting on the other side of him; Sirius and Peter were sitting opposite of them. For a while, neither of them noticed her, as always, but then James spotted her.

"Hey, Remus, isn't that your new friend?" he asked teasingly, not even bothering to keep his voice down, and nodded his head to Natalie. She looked up only to see all four boys looking at her.

"Hi" she smiled a little shyly.

"Hi, Natalie. You're doing all right?" Remus said and she nodded.

"You a Griffindor? How come I don't know you?" Sirius suddenly said.

"I don't know" Natalie shrugged.

"Are you new?" James asked.

"No, I'm not new. I'm here since I was eleven"

"Well," Sirius shrugged "I don't know many of sedond years, that should be the reason" Sirius concluded

"Uhm, actually I'm in third year, we're in the same class" Natalie told them and all three boys looked at her in astonishment before they turned to Remus, who didn't look surprised a bit.

"You knew that? You knew she was in our class?" James asked him and Remus shrugged.

"Why, yes, of course I did. She's always sitting in the front seat" he said and James and Sirius gave each other a look and shrugged simultaneously.

"What was your name again?" Sirius asked then.

"Natalie Crane" she introduced and reached her hand across the table for him to shake it. Sirius looked her and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly at her formal introduction, or maybe it was over the fact that while she was looking at him, James was putting crickets into her plate and she didn´t even notice. After a few seconds of contemplation, Sirius shook her hand.

When Natalie let go of his hand again, she took a full spoon of her meal. "Merlin, what is that?" she frowned when she tasted something definitely weird. But in that while all Marauders burst out laughing. Natalie's eyes went wide when she saw what exactely was on her plate. But then, to the great amazement of the four pranksters, she began to chuckle herself.

"Which of you did it, you?" she turned to James "When did you do it? I didn't even notice you got up" she wondered.

"Well, maybe you were too engrossed in eyeing Sirius." James said with a sly grin.

"Hey!" both Natalie and Sirius said.

"All right, guys, I think I'm better off." Natalie said then, whith a slight smile "I'll see you later." she said and slowly walked off.

"That was hillarious." James said and took a bite of his meal just to spit it out again, Sirius doing the same. The crickets were now decorating their plates. They both looked to the door of the Great hall just to see Natalie grinning and waving innocently at them.

"What the-" Sirius muttered.

"Hey! How did you do it?" James called after her and she smiled again.

"I'm good at charms." she shrugged and left.

Since that evening, Natalie was spending more and more time with the Marauders and after some time, they all became best friends. People even said that she was the only 'soft spot' of the great James Potter and Sirius Black - much to dismay of girls who were always trying to get their attention.

To the Marauders, Natalie was something like their secret weapon. She was a perfect student, all teachers loved her and still she could be a wicked prankster herself and with wicked ideas, too. Usually, it wasn't her who actually realized the pranks, but she was always up to thinking up new ideas and willingly doing their homeworks while the boys were in detention. But often she earned a detention along with them, sometimes even well deserved.

End of Flashback

When Natalie pulled away from Remus, she looked at him closely and she frowned when she took in his appearence.

"You look horrible." she said and he chuckled slightly.

"Yes, I must say you aren't visiting in the…right time."

"I'm sorry, Remus, I know this is the worst time I could show up here but I had to talk to you. But you know what? I think you should lay down." Natalie suggested and without waiting for his answer, she led her sick-looking friend to a sofa. He really didn't look well. His face was getting paler and paler, if it was even possible, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He looked as if he had a fever. The lack of his protests told Natalie that he was indeed feeling as bad as he looked.

"Here, lay down and I'll make you something to eat" she said kindly and spread a blanket over him.

"No, you really don't have to take care of me, Natalie. I'll be fine."

"Don't be silly." she cut him off, made her way to his small kitchen, and began looking for something to eat.

"Indeed." she muttered when she found out that Remus really didn't have anything to eat at all. She sighed and pulled out her wand. She hated cooking with a help of magic, she always liked the "hand-made" meal better. But right now, it would have to do. After several flicks of her wand, she was looking with satisfaction at a full pot of a steaming chicken soup. She poured some into a bowl and took it to the living room. Although Remus was looking exhausted, he still wasn't asleep.

"Here." she said and gave him the bowl of steaming soup.

"Thank you." he smiled gratefully and took it. While he was eating, Natalie made a fire in the fireplace and in a while the oddly cold room was slowly warming up.

"So, what have you been up to lately?" Lupin asked after he swallowed another mouthful.

"Nothing really." Natalie said and sat down on the armchair opposite of the sofa. "After…uhm, after we lost contact I traveled a bit and now, don't laugh, now I'm working as a vet" she said and Remus raised one eyebrow in a puzzled expression. Of course, Natalie was a Muggle-born, still tended to forget that sometimes Remus had no idea what she was talking about, especially after so many years of separation.

"What's a vet?" he asked

"Oh, I'm sorry. You know, I take care of pets and animals. When someone has a sick Crup or something, they just bring it to me and I'll cure it. You wouldn't believe just how much people are willing to pay to get their kid's Puffskein healed. And I also have a lot of my own animals" she said and blushed a little but Remus didn't laugh at all.

"Well, I guess it's not as surprising, you always were excelent at the Care of Magical Creatures although, maybe it is a shame you don't want to return to being an Auror." he said and Natalie sighed.

"Listen, they wanted me to come back. Asked me several times, actually. But I just can't and you know why. And to be honest, now I'm glad I didn't take their offer" she said and frowned slightly at that thought. She was glad she didn't have to be the one chasing after Sirius. She doubted she would be able to do it. Remus just nodded thoughtfully.

"And what about you?" Natalie asked with concern. It wasn't a secret that for Remus it was almost impossible to keep a job for a long time due to his 'illness'. When she realized she actually had abandoned him for five years, that for the five years he hadn't had anyone to help him, the ever-present guilt in the pit of her stomach grew even more.

"I always manage. I always find a job, even if for a short time, but it keeps me alive."

"What about now?" she asked, her concern still not lessening. But to her surprise, Remus gave her a slight smile.

"You'll be surprised. Several days ago Dumbledore personally visited me and offered me the post of the teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts." he said and Natalie gasped.

"Really?" she said in amazement but then she squealed "Oh, it's wonderful." she exclaimed and threw herself around Remus' neck once again. Only luck that Remus had put the now empty bowl on the small table next to the sofa, otherwise it would have been shattered.

"So, you're going back to Hogwarts." she sighed contentedly when she let him go and settled in the armchair again.

"Seems like it." Remus smiled again "You definitely have to come to visit me." he said then and Natalie smiled back.

"I definitely will. So…you'll go to the Shrieking Shack again?" she asked.

"No, I won't. Have you heard about Wolfsbane?" he asked and Natalie nodded.

"Yeah, I have. But it's quite new and not many people know how to prepare it. Can you do it?" she wondered.

"No, I can't. But Dumbledore talked Snape into brewing it for me." he said and Natalie's head shot up.

"Snape? Snape?" Natalie exclaimed and jumped up from her seat "You're going to drink something Snape made? Snape of all people? What is he even doing in Hogwarts anyways?"

"He's teaching there. He's a Potions master." Remus answered but didn't have time to tell anything else because Natalie cut him off again.

"Yeah? So what? That doesn't make him saint and he hates you. Please, don't drink it. I'll learn to do it myself and every month I'll bring it for you to Hogwarts, just don't take anything Snape made, please." Natalie begged him with a petrified voice and would ramble on and on if Remus hadn't stopped her.

"Nat? Nat, calm down, it'll be alright." Remus, now sitting upright again, took both Natalie's forearms and gently pulled his friend to sit down on the sofa next to him to calm her down.

"Listen, if Dumbledore trusts him then so do I. I don't deny that I'm not pleased by his presence in Hogwarts. But Dumbledore himself asked him to make that potion for me and I don't think that Snape would try to stand against his orders and try to kill me." Lupin said calmly and Natalie sighed.

"Are you sure?" she asked sadly and the werewolf nodded.

Natalie didn't like that idea. Not one bit. But she knew how much the post ment to Remus and also she knew that he would be the damn best teacher of DADA Hogwarts had ever seen.

"So…you'll be Harry's teacher." she said then, already calm again, with a slight smile. Lupin smiled back.

"Yes and frankly, I can't wait." Remus grinned but then his smile faded again. "I haven't seen him in twelve years."

"Neither have I. I still feel guilty for letting him stay with those people."

"What were we supposed to do? I would have loved nothing more than take him but it was Dumbledore's orders, you know that. And I can't say I blame him he didn't give Harry to me." Remus said with a mirthless smile.

"He could have given him to me. I think James would have liked more if Harry lived with his Godmother. Someone, who would treat him like a thirteen-year-old wizard, not a freak."

"You know that Dumbledore did only what he thought was in Harry's best interrest." Remus said quietly.

"Oh, come on, Remus, in Harry's best interrest? Until the age of eleven he didn't even have any idea about magic nor his own parents, you want to tell me that was in his best interrest?"

"Dumbledore couldn't have known they will treate him like that, Natalie."

"I know." Natalie said reluctantly "I just…he's our best friend's son and I haven't seen him in twelve years. I feel like I let James and Lily down, you know? They trusted us to take care of Harry if something happened to them. And look at us: Harry's legal guardian's in prison…was in prison….and the two of us are too scared to act against Dumbledore's ordrers."

"We're not scared." Remus interjected "At least not me. I think it was more due to the fact that deep down I know, and I'm sure you do too, that Dumbledore has a point." he said and for a while Natalie didn't say anything.

"You're right." she said then "But I can't wait to tell this excuse to Harry. If I ever see him, that is." she mumbled then. After this, a quiet settled in the room. Not an awkward one, but a comfortable, thoughtful quiet disturbed only by the cracking noise of the fire.

"Don't you wish to be at school again?" Natalie asked suddenly and Remus, who had been deep in his own thoughts, raised his eyes to her.

"Every day." he said without hesitation.