Pathetic part 2 of 3
Title: Pathetic
Author: Atachnethe2
Pairing: SS/SB
Rating: G
Status: Series, Part 1
Disclaimer: The characters of Harry Potter Books are creation of J.K. Rowlin.
Summary: One day Sirius found Snape's book and with that the things actually started.
Pathetic
I always thought that I was the only gay man in the Order.
Another ‘nice’ addition to my exceptional status of being the only one: the only Animagus, the only ex-convict, the only person who was not permitted to leave the house.
Ok, ok, I know, that the last one is meant only for my own good.
So now at last in this one point I’m not the only one any more. I should feel delighted and probably I would, but you know... Why did it have to be Snape, of all people?
Why not Kingsley, for example? Or Molly’s eldest - what was his name? - yeah, Bill! Nice bloke, but straight to the core and busily ogling Tonks. Too bad that Remus is ogling her too and she is ogling him right back. Not that I’m ogling them both too visibly. But their ogling of each other is so obvious that the rest of the Order already noticed and the betting pool on ogling changing into snogging already contained 50 whole Galleons.
Well, life is short and you can’t take your money with you to the other side.
So why that greasy git? Why should it be Snivellus with his grace of a hairy spider and teeth like a horse?
Not that I ever noticed it before. For I never looked or even thought about him in such a way.
Snivellus and sex?
Shudder!
I would rather shag a Dementor in his place.
Or I'd rather never get it up for the rest of my life.
No, stop! Not that!
Of course I wish to go out of this house one day as a free man. To have a good time outside here, some fun and a partner who will make me hard, fuck me silly and finally catapult me straight to nirvana.
One way or another. For I hadn't had any erection since I got arrested fourteen years ago. And probably never would have, because of Snivellus and the picture of his bony arse.
James was right! This man indeed has to be blamed for everything. Even for that!
Sitting onto the edge of my bed I extinguished my fifth cigarette of the morning and reached for the sodding book. Even if one couldn’t get it up, at least one could read about guys who still can. Let’s look what dirty fantasies Snivellus is into.
But the book went beyond my wildest imaginings.
Of course, there was sex in there. Lots of it to be truthful, described in pretty graphic ways. But it was the story which drew me in and held me there the whole time, till the very last sentence.
As I stated previously, the story was about two wizards being in love with each other and the family of one of them - Amis was his name - didn’t approve.
So Amil helped Amis to escape from the estate of his parents and the both of them spent an idyllic summer in a small cottage somewhere in the woods, which is actually the whole story.
The time in this cottage stretches over pages and pages, describing sunny mornings in their bedroom and evenings in front of the fireplace. It is about listening to the rain drumming onto the roof and watching the stars at night. It tells about talks and walks through the forest, swimming in the lake, reading poetry, cooking of breakfast, lunch, dinner and - the most important activity - having sex at every time, place, opportunity and position. With thorough foreplay, exploration, release and aftermath. Not to mention the countless mentions of touching hands, deep looks, blushing and deep kisses, and the ever present and never ending declarations of love.
Of sweet love.
Of eternal love.
Of never ending love, which lasted only this summer. For one day these lovebirds were found by Amis’ family, whose members killed Amil in front of his lover and took the rebellious son back to the family estate, where the boy spent the rest of his life as a bitter man, being imprisoned in one of the towers.
Yet still remembering the only summer in his life.
-*-
I never read this sort of fiction before. It has simply never been my taste. Too sweet, too overloaded with all this mushy stuff and all in all utterly pathetic.
But before Azkaban I was a different person. Especially during those few years after I finished Hogwarts and before James and Lilly died.
I lived two hundred percent: fucked every man who was willing, attended parties which ended with the sunrise, ate, drank, made friendships, fought Voldemort without any second thought, because it was simply the right thing. I savoured every day as if it were my last.
Looking over the abyss I managed to climb out from, I think that I did the best thing I could.
There are no regrets for me. Except for one, for which perhaps I will be never able to forgive myself.
So in those days I didn’t pay any attention to romantic fluff. Now eons of years later I swallowed this book in one reading and when I reached the end I turned it to the beginning and did the same for the second time. Meanwhile it was morning again and I ate my breakfast mechanically, cleaned the kitchen as quickly as possible and then read the book for the third time.
The fourth time I read it in between my chores to calm Molly’s suspicions a bit, because she, like the others, was worried about my latest sulkiness. I started to carry it permanently in the pocket of my robe and in this way I managed the fifth and even sixth reading. By the seventh I could already recite the text of whole chapters. By the eighth I had checked the blasted thing for any obsession charm, but either my illegal wand really was bad, or my skills were rusty, or there was really nothing foul there.
I would have liked to ask Molly or Remus for help. But I had already lied through my teeth to the woman and I would rather die than tell my friend about my current obsession with Snape’s romantic love story.
Besides, these days Remus seemed to be preoccupied with other things which strongly involved Tonks and silencing charms. So I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on a closer examination of the book.
It was rather small and thick, wrapped in an old copy of Daily Prophet, but how old it was I couldn’t tell. The same went for the author: I'd never heard of her name. Yet the care with which the book had been glued back together several times, the pages which were turning yellow and fragile around the edges, the spots of dried tea and the lines of ink marking the sentences here and there - these were all signs that the right owner read it as obsessively as me.
What had he been searching for in it?
I still could see him sitting in the kitchen during that evening. His quiet posture, his greasy hair falling down, his yellow fingers caressing the paper while his eyes swallowed the text.
Why? Why him and this book for Merlin’s sake? And why my sudden fascination with it?
If we were still in school, I would have held Snape’s book high so everyone could see it and then read from it aloud for everybody’s entertainment, and so that everyone knew that the slimy, arrogant Snivellus with his sharp, cynical remarks and dirty underwear, liked to read romantic novels. I’m sure that James would have made jokes about it for years.
But James is dead and I’m sitting in this blasted house of my parents, trying to act normal and dreaming about being somewhere else.
In a cottage in the woods for example.
But while I can’t be someplace else, at least I’m reading about it, sucking all the sweetness and happiness into me, because someone else sucked my own happiness out of me years ago and spit the rest out, for there wasn’t anything else to take.
But at least once I was so full of life that I gave it out with full hands. I wasn’t born empty and hollow and so greedy for warmth and compassion that I should be forced to take it from other person or even feed myself from a story in a book.
I wasn’t born as a Dementor nor as Snivellus.
Meanwhile I caught my hands caressing the book in the way Snape did on that evening. I was turning the pages reverently one by one, searching for the most favourite places in the need to escape my present, or at least to take part in the happiness of others.
And it didn’t matter that their love lasted only for this one summer. What mattered was the sex and the declarations, their going to bed together and waking up there the next morning.
It mattered that it happened.
And the one who read their story could be there with them as well. The one with empty bed, empty hands and empty heart.
It was during the ninth reading when I became sure that I had found Snape’s favourite passage. It was short. Only a few paragraphs at the end of the sixth chapter, when Amis was sitting in the grass holding Amil’s head in his lap. They both were watching the dawn.
„It’s everyone’s right,“ Amil said.
„What?“ Amis whispered back.
„To be loved.“
There were some dry spots spread across the page.
Probably spilled tea...
-*-
And then I died.
When I think about that moment, I can’t but feel a bit of irony about the nonsense of the way it happened. And somehow I can’t otherwise but admit that somewhere in the unconscious part of my brain I held this secret wish, which came out uncontrollably to the surface and spilled out into my provoking sentence:
„You know, you can do better!“
And ironically, Bellatrix fulfilled my wish.
But later, when everyone pried and asked me what had I seen behind that veil, I couldn’t do anything but shrug my shoulders because I really didn’t remember anything.
The next thing I could tell was falling down to the ground panting and sweating and thinking seriously, the bitch was indeed in remarkable condition. Then straightening myself I looked around and my second thought was: where is everybody?
I went out of the room and left the Department of Mysteries. The corridors there were empty but the noises coming from the upper levels told me, that there was a full normal busy day in the Ministry. So I changed myself into a dog. Not that it hadn’t been known since last summer, but seeing my face people would react much faster than seeing a dog and being forced to put two and two together first. So in this way I would win some precious time to escape.
But on this day I was luckier than I'd imagined, because after about hundred meters or so I ran into Arthur.
I couldn’t judge it properly through my dog’s eyes, but later Arthur told me that in that moment he thought seriously that someone hexed him and he was hallucinating. The only thing I could see was a man leaning himself heavily against the wall, his glasses held in his left hand and a handkerchief in his right hand, wiping the sweat off his face. Slowly I approached him and nudged his hip with my snout. Immediately Arthur put his glasses on and himself together:
„Snuffles?“ He whispered hesitantly.
I whined in response and wagged my tail.
„Merlin! How...? That’s… that‘s impossible!“
Again I nudged him.
Hesitantly Arthur stretched out his hand and patted my head. I barked in response, which finally made him realise the whole situation.
„Shhh...! You will alarm the Aurors,“ he patted me once more, „come with me.“
He took me into an empty room which I recognised as the place where once the public hearings of Voldemort‘s followers took place. How convenient! I looked up at Arthur. He shrugged his shoulders:
„I’m sorry my friend, but my office is right next to the Aurror’s Department. But these days this place is empty. Last time it was used, it was Harry’s hearing taking place here. You still remember that ridiculous thing, don’t you? All right... Look, I'll leave you here and close the door and then inform the right people. Then I will come back to you, agreed?“
I transformed back into my human form.
„Agreed,“ I said.
Arthur literally jumped back, which surprised me rather unpleasantly. But before I could compose any coherent question, he pulled himself together and the next moment I got almost shredded in his tight hug.
I took some deep breaths first, just to make sure my ribcage was still intact, before I asked the most important question.
„Arthur, what happened?“
Arthur’s shit-eating grin faded. „You were dead, Sirius.“
„Dead?“
„Yes, dead. Bellatrix Lestrange sent you straight beyond the Veil.“
Dead... The meaning of this word hit me full force, so that I had to sit down and somehow didn’t care that it was *that* chair, with *those* manacles.
So I was dead...
„How long, Arthur?“
„I would say for almost three weeks.“
„So...“
„Yeah...So? So what?“
„That when I stood up from this sodding floor I found myself to be completely alone, wondering where everyone was!“
Arthur waved his hands: „Not so loudly, please. These places might be empty, but you know... things happen. And you want to get out, don‘t you?“
„Yeah, right. The sooner, the better.“
„So then let me get something. I think right now I’m getting an idea.“ He headed toward the door. At the threshold he stopped: „Don’t you... you know, when you have been there....“
I shook my head: „Sorry, I don’t remember anything.“
„Ah, ok, ok. I will not stay away for too long. I promise.“
With that he left me alone.
„Lumos!“ I told my wand to make this room a bit less creepy. Even if nothing could beat Azkaban or even the house of my parents. Somehow in my life I’m prone to being stranded in creepy places.
Thank Merlin, Arthur kept his promise and returned only a half hour later holding a bag. I let out a breath I had been holding the whole time. If he had been away longer, then I would probably have started crawling up the walls.
„Exactly as I predicted,“ Arthur said panting but grinning. „When I need someone, then no one is available. Kingsley is on assignment since yesterday; Tonks took some time off, and Albus is very busy, or so Minerva told me.“ He pointed at the bag: „So we have to improvise a bit.“
Hesitantly I opened it and pulled out a red, silky robe, a blond hair piece and a black hat with a black veil.
„Women's clothes, Arthur?“
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned: „Well, if I‘m correct, then they are searching after Sirius Black and not after Alphonsine Weasley my dear niece.“
„I’m too old to be your niece.“
„Traditionally a mysterious lady companion is always introduced as a niece or a cousin. Hopefully I will be able to explain it to Molly.“
The idea of Arthur having a girlfriend cheered me up. I put the outfit on and voila - dear Alphonsine was there.
„How do I look?“ I cooed at Arthur.
„Dashing dear,“ Arthur cooed back, then he blushed. „Hopefully there will not be many people to see us. You know, this place is a fish bowl.“
He ushered me out into the corridor and offered me his elbow. I pulled the veil over my face: „Where did you take these things from?“
„Don’t ask,“ he whispered back and then we stepped out towards... well , my ‘freedom’.
There really weren’t many people in the corridors. The few we met were obviously hastily leaving for home. They just greeted us shortly before they rushed by.
We entered the lift and left again in the main hall. In the middle stood a strange construct blocking a view of a pile of ruins.
„The fountain,“ Arthur whispered.
„What?“
„The You-Know-Who destroyed it in the fight with Harry and Albus.“
„WHAT?!“
„Shhhhhhhhhhh... not so loudly! I will explain it later.“ He started to pull me away.
„Finishing a bit sooner today, Arthur?“
Arthur stirred, then slowly turned toward the voice. I turned too. A small wizard stood there wearing a grey beard and a knitted, green robe.
„Ah... yes, Ignacius. Today I’m making an exception. Now, excuse us please, we have to go...“ Arthur pulled at my elbow to get us out of Ignacius’ reach. Fat chance.
„Nice companion you have here. Would you introduce her to me?“
„Ah... that’s Alphonsia... my niece...“
Ignacius‘ eyebrows shot up: „Your niece?“
He made a step forward. Instinctively I drew closer to Arthur and looked chastely at my feet.
„A bit shy your niece, but quite pretty, Arthur, you old dog.“
„Can we go?“ I piped in my softest voice. „We have still to get those tickets.“
Ignacius laughed, Arthur’s hand shot toward the collar of his shirt to loose the pressure.
„Of course my dear,“ he croaked as determined as he could. „Bye Ignacius, see you tomorrow.“
„Yeah,“ Ignatius made a cheerful bow, „until tomorrow Arthur, Miss...“
The rest of the way to the lonely phone box we accomplished without any similar encounter. We pressed our bodies into the tiny phone cell. „Two people leaving,“ Arthur said into the receiver and then slowly, the phone box lifted up. The journey lasted too long for my patience. Before it reached the surface in the deserted part of Muggle London I seriously thought of screaming. I hate being confined in small places! But finally the door of the tiny cell opened and relieved, Arthur and I stepped out. We were alone in the shabby street.
Immediately I pulled the sodding veil off my face: „Did I destroy your reputation today?“
„Completely,“ with relief Arthur loosened his necktie, „Ignatius gossips like an old woman“ He stuffed the necktie into the pocket of his robe. „Can you apparate?“
„I think so.“
„All right. Let’s go, then!“
And the next moment we both vanished.
Author: Atachnethe2
Pairing: SS/SB
Rating: G
Status: Series, Part 1
Disclaimer: The characters of Harry Potter Books are creation of J.K. Rowlin.
Summary: One day Sirius found Snape's book and with that the things actually started.
Pathetic
I always thought that I was the only gay man in the Order.
Another ‘nice’ addition to my exceptional status of being the only one: the only Animagus, the only ex-convict, the only person who was not permitted to leave the house.
Ok, ok, I know, that the last one is meant only for my own good.
So now at last in this one point I’m not the only one any more. I should feel delighted and probably I would, but you know... Why did it have to be Snape, of all people?
Why not Kingsley, for example? Or Molly’s eldest - what was his name? - yeah, Bill! Nice bloke, but straight to the core and busily ogling Tonks. Too bad that Remus is ogling her too and she is ogling him right back. Not that I’m ogling them both too visibly. But their ogling of each other is so obvious that the rest of the Order already noticed and the betting pool on ogling changing into snogging already contained 50 whole Galleons.
Well, life is short and you can’t take your money with you to the other side.
So why that greasy git? Why should it be Snivellus with his grace of a hairy spider and teeth like a horse?
Not that I ever noticed it before. For I never looked or even thought about him in such a way.
Snivellus and sex?
Shudder!
I would rather shag a Dementor in his place.
Or I'd rather never get it up for the rest of my life.
No, stop! Not that!
Of course I wish to go out of this house one day as a free man. To have a good time outside here, some fun and a partner who will make me hard, fuck me silly and finally catapult me straight to nirvana.
One way or another. For I hadn't had any erection since I got arrested fourteen years ago. And probably never would have, because of Snivellus and the picture of his bony arse.
James was right! This man indeed has to be blamed for everything. Even for that!
Sitting onto the edge of my bed I extinguished my fifth cigarette of the morning and reached for the sodding book. Even if one couldn’t get it up, at least one could read about guys who still can. Let’s look what dirty fantasies Snivellus is into.
But the book went beyond my wildest imaginings.
Of course, there was sex in there. Lots of it to be truthful, described in pretty graphic ways. But it was the story which drew me in and held me there the whole time, till the very last sentence.
As I stated previously, the story was about two wizards being in love with each other and the family of one of them - Amis was his name - didn’t approve.
So Amil helped Amis to escape from the estate of his parents and the both of them spent an idyllic summer in a small cottage somewhere in the woods, which is actually the whole story.
The time in this cottage stretches over pages and pages, describing sunny mornings in their bedroom and evenings in front of the fireplace. It is about listening to the rain drumming onto the roof and watching the stars at night. It tells about talks and walks through the forest, swimming in the lake, reading poetry, cooking of breakfast, lunch, dinner and - the most important activity - having sex at every time, place, opportunity and position. With thorough foreplay, exploration, release and aftermath. Not to mention the countless mentions of touching hands, deep looks, blushing and deep kisses, and the ever present and never ending declarations of love.
Of sweet love.
Of eternal love.
Of never ending love, which lasted only this summer. For one day these lovebirds were found by Amis’ family, whose members killed Amil in front of his lover and took the rebellious son back to the family estate, where the boy spent the rest of his life as a bitter man, being imprisoned in one of the towers.
Yet still remembering the only summer in his life.
-*-
I never read this sort of fiction before. It has simply never been my taste. Too sweet, too overloaded with all this mushy stuff and all in all utterly pathetic.
But before Azkaban I was a different person. Especially during those few years after I finished Hogwarts and before James and Lilly died.
I lived two hundred percent: fucked every man who was willing, attended parties which ended with the sunrise, ate, drank, made friendships, fought Voldemort without any second thought, because it was simply the right thing. I savoured every day as if it were my last.
Looking over the abyss I managed to climb out from, I think that I did the best thing I could.
There are no regrets for me. Except for one, for which perhaps I will be never able to forgive myself.
So in those days I didn’t pay any attention to romantic fluff. Now eons of years later I swallowed this book in one reading and when I reached the end I turned it to the beginning and did the same for the second time. Meanwhile it was morning again and I ate my breakfast mechanically, cleaned the kitchen as quickly as possible and then read the book for the third time.
The fourth time I read it in between my chores to calm Molly’s suspicions a bit, because she, like the others, was worried about my latest sulkiness. I started to carry it permanently in the pocket of my robe and in this way I managed the fifth and even sixth reading. By the seventh I could already recite the text of whole chapters. By the eighth I had checked the blasted thing for any obsession charm, but either my illegal wand really was bad, or my skills were rusty, or there was really nothing foul there.
I would have liked to ask Molly or Remus for help. But I had already lied through my teeth to the woman and I would rather die than tell my friend about my current obsession with Snape’s romantic love story.
Besides, these days Remus seemed to be preoccupied with other things which strongly involved Tonks and silencing charms. So I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on a closer examination of the book.
It was rather small and thick, wrapped in an old copy of Daily Prophet, but how old it was I couldn’t tell. The same went for the author: I'd never heard of her name. Yet the care with which the book had been glued back together several times, the pages which were turning yellow and fragile around the edges, the spots of dried tea and the lines of ink marking the sentences here and there - these were all signs that the right owner read it as obsessively as me.
What had he been searching for in it?
I still could see him sitting in the kitchen during that evening. His quiet posture, his greasy hair falling down, his yellow fingers caressing the paper while his eyes swallowed the text.
Why? Why him and this book for Merlin’s sake? And why my sudden fascination with it?
If we were still in school, I would have held Snape’s book high so everyone could see it and then read from it aloud for everybody’s entertainment, and so that everyone knew that the slimy, arrogant Snivellus with his sharp, cynical remarks and dirty underwear, liked to read romantic novels. I’m sure that James would have made jokes about it for years.
But James is dead and I’m sitting in this blasted house of my parents, trying to act normal and dreaming about being somewhere else.
In a cottage in the woods for example.
But while I can’t be someplace else, at least I’m reading about it, sucking all the sweetness and happiness into me, because someone else sucked my own happiness out of me years ago and spit the rest out, for there wasn’t anything else to take.
But at least once I was so full of life that I gave it out with full hands. I wasn’t born empty and hollow and so greedy for warmth and compassion that I should be forced to take it from other person or even feed myself from a story in a book.
I wasn’t born as a Dementor nor as Snivellus.
Meanwhile I caught my hands caressing the book in the way Snape did on that evening. I was turning the pages reverently one by one, searching for the most favourite places in the need to escape my present, or at least to take part in the happiness of others.
And it didn’t matter that their love lasted only for this one summer. What mattered was the sex and the declarations, their going to bed together and waking up there the next morning.
It mattered that it happened.
And the one who read their story could be there with them as well. The one with empty bed, empty hands and empty heart.
It was during the ninth reading when I became sure that I had found Snape’s favourite passage. It was short. Only a few paragraphs at the end of the sixth chapter, when Amis was sitting in the grass holding Amil’s head in his lap. They both were watching the dawn.
„It’s everyone’s right,“ Amil said.
„What?“ Amis whispered back.
„To be loved.“
There were some dry spots spread across the page.
Probably spilled tea...
-*-
And then I died.
When I think about that moment, I can’t but feel a bit of irony about the nonsense of the way it happened. And somehow I can’t otherwise but admit that somewhere in the unconscious part of my brain I held this secret wish, which came out uncontrollably to the surface and spilled out into my provoking sentence:
„You know, you can do better!“
And ironically, Bellatrix fulfilled my wish.
But later, when everyone pried and asked me what had I seen behind that veil, I couldn’t do anything but shrug my shoulders because I really didn’t remember anything.
The next thing I could tell was falling down to the ground panting and sweating and thinking seriously, the bitch was indeed in remarkable condition. Then straightening myself I looked around and my second thought was: where is everybody?
I went out of the room and left the Department of Mysteries. The corridors there were empty but the noises coming from the upper levels told me, that there was a full normal busy day in the Ministry. So I changed myself into a dog. Not that it hadn’t been known since last summer, but seeing my face people would react much faster than seeing a dog and being forced to put two and two together first. So in this way I would win some precious time to escape.
But on this day I was luckier than I'd imagined, because after about hundred meters or so I ran into Arthur.
I couldn’t judge it properly through my dog’s eyes, but later Arthur told me that in that moment he thought seriously that someone hexed him and he was hallucinating. The only thing I could see was a man leaning himself heavily against the wall, his glasses held in his left hand and a handkerchief in his right hand, wiping the sweat off his face. Slowly I approached him and nudged his hip with my snout. Immediately Arthur put his glasses on and himself together:
„Snuffles?“ He whispered hesitantly.
I whined in response and wagged my tail.
„Merlin! How...? That’s… that‘s impossible!“
Again I nudged him.
Hesitantly Arthur stretched out his hand and patted my head. I barked in response, which finally made him realise the whole situation.
„Shhh...! You will alarm the Aurors,“ he patted me once more, „come with me.“
He took me into an empty room which I recognised as the place where once the public hearings of Voldemort‘s followers took place. How convenient! I looked up at Arthur. He shrugged his shoulders:
„I’m sorry my friend, but my office is right next to the Aurror’s Department. But these days this place is empty. Last time it was used, it was Harry’s hearing taking place here. You still remember that ridiculous thing, don’t you? All right... Look, I'll leave you here and close the door and then inform the right people. Then I will come back to you, agreed?“
I transformed back into my human form.
„Agreed,“ I said.
Arthur literally jumped back, which surprised me rather unpleasantly. But before I could compose any coherent question, he pulled himself together and the next moment I got almost shredded in his tight hug.
I took some deep breaths first, just to make sure my ribcage was still intact, before I asked the most important question.
„Arthur, what happened?“
Arthur’s shit-eating grin faded. „You were dead, Sirius.“
„Dead?“
„Yes, dead. Bellatrix Lestrange sent you straight beyond the Veil.“
Dead... The meaning of this word hit me full force, so that I had to sit down and somehow didn’t care that it was *that* chair, with *those* manacles.
So I was dead...
„How long, Arthur?“
„I would say for almost three weeks.“
„So...“
„Yeah...So? So what?“
„That when I stood up from this sodding floor I found myself to be completely alone, wondering where everyone was!“
Arthur waved his hands: „Not so loudly, please. These places might be empty, but you know... things happen. And you want to get out, don‘t you?“
„Yeah, right. The sooner, the better.“
„So then let me get something. I think right now I’m getting an idea.“ He headed toward the door. At the threshold he stopped: „Don’t you... you know, when you have been there....“
I shook my head: „Sorry, I don’t remember anything.“
„Ah, ok, ok. I will not stay away for too long. I promise.“
With that he left me alone.
„Lumos!“ I told my wand to make this room a bit less creepy. Even if nothing could beat Azkaban or even the house of my parents. Somehow in my life I’m prone to being stranded in creepy places.
Thank Merlin, Arthur kept his promise and returned only a half hour later holding a bag. I let out a breath I had been holding the whole time. If he had been away longer, then I would probably have started crawling up the walls.
„Exactly as I predicted,“ Arthur said panting but grinning. „When I need someone, then no one is available. Kingsley is on assignment since yesterday; Tonks took some time off, and Albus is very busy, or so Minerva told me.“ He pointed at the bag: „So we have to improvise a bit.“
Hesitantly I opened it and pulled out a red, silky robe, a blond hair piece and a black hat with a black veil.
„Women's clothes, Arthur?“
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned: „Well, if I‘m correct, then they are searching after Sirius Black and not after Alphonsine Weasley my dear niece.“
„I’m too old to be your niece.“
„Traditionally a mysterious lady companion is always introduced as a niece or a cousin. Hopefully I will be able to explain it to Molly.“
The idea of Arthur having a girlfriend cheered me up. I put the outfit on and voila - dear Alphonsine was there.
„How do I look?“ I cooed at Arthur.
„Dashing dear,“ Arthur cooed back, then he blushed. „Hopefully there will not be many people to see us. You know, this place is a fish bowl.“
He ushered me out into the corridor and offered me his elbow. I pulled the veil over my face: „Where did you take these things from?“
„Don’t ask,“ he whispered back and then we stepped out towards... well , my ‘freedom’.
There really weren’t many people in the corridors. The few we met were obviously hastily leaving for home. They just greeted us shortly before they rushed by.
We entered the lift and left again in the main hall. In the middle stood a strange construct blocking a view of a pile of ruins.
„The fountain,“ Arthur whispered.
„What?“
„The You-Know-Who destroyed it in the fight with Harry and Albus.“
„WHAT?!“
„Shhhhhhhhhhh... not so loudly! I will explain it later.“ He started to pull me away.
„Finishing a bit sooner today, Arthur?“
Arthur stirred, then slowly turned toward the voice. I turned too. A small wizard stood there wearing a grey beard and a knitted, green robe.
„Ah... yes, Ignacius. Today I’m making an exception. Now, excuse us please, we have to go...“ Arthur pulled at my elbow to get us out of Ignacius’ reach. Fat chance.
„Nice companion you have here. Would you introduce her to me?“
„Ah... that’s Alphonsia... my niece...“
Ignacius‘ eyebrows shot up: „Your niece?“
He made a step forward. Instinctively I drew closer to Arthur and looked chastely at my feet.
„A bit shy your niece, but quite pretty, Arthur, you old dog.“
„Can we go?“ I piped in my softest voice. „We have still to get those tickets.“
Ignacius laughed, Arthur’s hand shot toward the collar of his shirt to loose the pressure.
„Of course my dear,“ he croaked as determined as he could. „Bye Ignacius, see you tomorrow.“
„Yeah,“ Ignatius made a cheerful bow, „until tomorrow Arthur, Miss...“
The rest of the way to the lonely phone box we accomplished without any similar encounter. We pressed our bodies into the tiny phone cell. „Two people leaving,“ Arthur said into the receiver and then slowly, the phone box lifted up. The journey lasted too long for my patience. Before it reached the surface in the deserted part of Muggle London I seriously thought of screaming. I hate being confined in small places! But finally the door of the tiny cell opened and relieved, Arthur and I stepped out. We were alone in the shabby street.
Immediately I pulled the sodding veil off my face: „Did I destroy your reputation today?“
„Completely,“ with relief Arthur loosened his necktie, „Ignatius gossips like an old woman“ He stuffed the necktie into the pocket of his robe. „Can you apparate?“
„I think so.“
„All right. Let’s go, then!“
And the next moment we both vanished.