Fic: And in Darkness Bind Them Part 3
Title: And in Darkness Bind Them (Part 3)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sirius Black, James Potter, Lily Potter, Remus Lupin, Lenka Myskova
(OC), Ivanka Myskova (OC), Mrs. Myskova (OC), Peter Pettigrew, Harry Potter, Various Order Members
Pairings: James/Lily, Sirius/Lenka(OC)
Warnings: Sexual Themes and Issues
Summary: Sirius Black has always been the one to keep going and going, but finally meets someone who makes him pause.
Word Count: 5,673
Part 1
Part 2
Later on, Sirius and Lenka sat together on the back stoop of her shop, sipping hot tea and watching Muggles shuffle about on their way home from late-evening endeavors. The building was rather unnoticeable on this side to the non-magical folk, of course, appearing only to them as a darkened apartment complex. She told him a little about her life in Czechia, and how glad she had been to find a place in England on “the border”, because her mum was sometimes afraid of their world and could get away for a while if she wanted to.
“She hated bringingk me to school,” the young woman reminisced with a faint smile. “We would go to train station togedder, but she would never see me off at the train, she’d wait on the Muggle side. I t’ink she is afraid that they would look at her and know she is not like them. She took her fear a bit too far, but it was not unreasonable. Durmstrang…”
Her hands gestured feebly, as though trying to capture the rest of the sentence in her thin fingers, and Sirius took the subtle chaos of the movement as a negative ending. “Is it as bad as everyone makes it out to be?”
An attempt at a noncommittal noise issued from somewhere deep in Lenka’s throat, but she nevertheless put down her tea and started chewing her thumbnail absently.
“If I ‘ad stayed on, I would know 50 ways to kill you,” she admitted softly after a long silence, avoiding his eyes. “As it is, I know 35.”
Sirius couldn’t help feeling slightly unsettled by that information, but looking at the way Lenka’s shoulders were squared, mouth twisted bitterly, eyebrows furrowed, he could tell that the fact disturbed her too.
“Dark Arts are taught, but not forced upon us,” she continued hastily, in an obvious attempt to defend her school. “And Defense is offered, though we are only really taught spells to control the Dark things, like the Patronus…”
“You can cast a Patronus?” he interrupted a bit rudely, surprise making him tactless. “A corporeal one?”
Smiling faintly, she looked up and down the street three times to be certain there were no Muggles around, pulled her wand deftly from her the waistband of her trousers, and whispered, “Expecto Patronum.” A silvery-white goose burst from the end of her wand, flew silently and as gracefully as a goose possibly could across the street and back to them before vanishing into the night. The street seemed much darker to Sirius’ eyes afterward. She placed her wand on the step beside her. “I, uh, I am taught when I am fourteen.”
Sirius let out a low whistle and she smiled more widely, looking pleased with herself. He nodded solemnly, and then, as a compulsion, it occurred to him to teach her how to send messaged with her Patronus. She picked it up more quickly than others had, simply because others had had to take the extra time to learn the Patronus itself. “Fourteen…wow. So you took the class, then?” His tone was light, teasingly mischievous only because he was a bit jealous that this scrawny young woman had learned a spell as a girl that he had not until he was seventeen.
She laughed softly and nodded. “Yeah, I took the class wit’ all my friends, an’ we were the only ones who showed up. Poor Professor Vladovski, he said we were smallest class he ever had.”
Sirius, baffled, tried to think of a number that would be small enough to be a group of friends that could be influenced by Lenka’s charms, and yet large enough to still be considered a class. “So, there were, what, ten of you? Twelve?”
Lenka’s eyebrows shot incredulously up into her fringe. “Six,” she corrected.
“Six of you? In the whole class?”
She laughed again; it was a lovely genuine sort of laugh and Sirius was determined to hear it as often as possible. “Told you it was small,” she nodded. “I’was me, Lucina Jarunkova, Irena Strbova, Milo Korinkov, Henrich Weber (German, but we don’t judge him too harshly, ha ha), and Pavel Rosta.” She counted them off on her fingers, with great fondness evident in her face and voice, and Sirius couldn’t help but wonder if, with the group so neatly and elegantly paired off, one of those boys she mentioned was Ivanka’s father.
As if she were able to read his mind, Lenka met his eyes and shook her head. Oh. “I’m not goingk to tell you about him,” she insisted, though it held the same sort of light, teasing tone that he’d used earlier.
She yawned impressively and stretched her arms high up over her head before picking up their empty mugs and standing. “It’s gettingk late; you should probably go home.”
Guilt instantly washed over Sirius. She was kicking him out because of his big mouth, again. Merlin. He shot to his feet instantly, knowing that it was better to get a head-start on his arse-kissing. “Lenka, I’m sorry, I won’t pry anymore, I promise.”
Lenka straightened from where she’d leaned over to pick up her wand and tuck it back into her waistband, looking taken aback and perplexed by his apology. She pushed her long hair from her eyes, smiling with bemusement. “Um, okay?” His relief seemed only to amuse her further. “But it’s still getting late. And you still should go home.”
Sirius really couldn’t help laughing at himself as Lenka led the way back into the dark flat. Her mum had gone to bed around the same time that Ivanka fell asleep. “I’d only thought you were mad, as I was being so nosy,” he explained. She nodded over her shoulder at him, rinsing the mugs in the sink and then setting the rest of the dishes to wash themselves, but otherwise said nothing as they walked together to the Alley entrance.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna go for a walk, or a coffee?” he asked the moment his feet touched the cobblestones. He found himself inexplicably reluctant to leave, wanting to talk to her more and more. “Maybe hit a few Muggle night clubs, shake it up a bit?” Get sloshed and make sweet love on the kitchen floor? No, Padfoot!
She laughed and shook her head from the doorway. “You know I can’t.”
He had rather expected that answer, but disappointment was still a blunt punch to the chest. Not wanting to lie awake all night worrying about her wandering off again, he hoped that his almost nonstop pestering had worn her out, or that her little adventure in Knockturn the night before had been a one-time act of desperation that would not be repeated. And he could only watch her in Lily’s mirror so many times without feeling like a stalker. Lily! Good Lord, the Potters were good friends to have around!
He stopped mid-turn to make it look like he had been about to Apparate, and instead looked up at her again. “Oh, by the by, do you think the portrait of Harry’ll be done by Saturday night?”
Lenka thoughtfully pursed her lips for a few moments, and then nodded. “Yeah, should be. You need it by then?”
“Yeah,” replied Sirius, digging his hands into his pockets and sashaying a bit nearer to her, “that’s when I’d like to give it to his parents. It’s his birthday, see, and they’re a having a bit of a party. Little thing, nothing fancy.”
Crossing her arms dubiously across her chest, Lenka leaned against the doorframe and smiled at him with amusement dancing merrily in her eyes, as if she knew what was coming.
Sirius, so carried away with the sound of his own voice carrying such a convincingly eloquent story, had been about to feign a revelation - gasp, raised eyebrows and all that - but deflated slightly when the young woman moved into that position. Well, might as well go for honesty again. It had worked so well before. “James and Lily said I could bring along a date.”
Bugger.
“I mean, uh, a friend.”
Better, but cover your tracks, man!
“Y’know a friend-date type of deal.”
She was smiling; hopefully that was a good sign. He felt almost weak with his own embarrassment. What the hell had happened to the suave young pup he had been not but four months ago with that witch in Hogsmeade who vaguely resembled Celestina Warbeck?
“So, uh, what d’you say? It’s at seven.”
Looking away from him down the Alley, half of her was bathed in shadow, but the part of her face that he could see appeared to be smiling. “Yeah, okay,” she agreed after a moment’s thought. “I’ll try to make it.”
He could have spun a cartwheel and whooped for joy, but had a feeling that it would disturb Lenka slightly. Instead he merely grinned and gently shook one fist to restrain himself from punching the air. “Brilliant,” he said, dropping his hand down to his side. “Alright, cool, it’ll be fun.”
“Sounds like it,” she nodded, uncrossing her arms.
Elated by her acceptance, Sirius nodded. “Okay. I’d better be off now. If I don’t see you, I’ll see you Saturday!” He stepped back down onto the street and was about to Disapparate when Lenka’s voice, barely audible but yearned for a listening ear, stopped him.
“I don’t…I don’t talk about him, much. Not because his memory brings me pain,” she explained while Sirius stared raptly into her face. “That part of my life is over now, yeah? I turn over a new leaf here.”
Suitably whelmed, Sirius buried his hands in his pockets again. “Fair enough.”
Something seemed to pass between them then, something tangible and nearly visible that made his chest ache and stomach churn. Then she gave him a little wave and smile before vanishing into the dark shop. He stared after her for a long time before popping back to his house.
It was past midnight, he realized with a jolt as he glanced at the clock beside his bed. The dark and quiet of the tiny house seemed to press in on him as he sat alone on the edge of the bed. He recalled suddenly another lonely person curled on the edge of another bed; suddenly his seemed rather large. He kicked off his shoes but otherwise remained fully clothed as he crawled between the blankets and one of the many quilts Mrs. Figg had supplied for the Order last Christmas, warm and comfortable and well-loved by many; it was much more than he could say of the bed of the girl he had just left. Her sheets were ordinary, plain of pattern and mattress void of signs of affection that came with even just a special blanket or pillow.
He leaned back against his pillows and stared at the ceiling for a long time before sleep could find him.
The next five days had been some of the most arduously dull he had ever been through in his life, and yet also some of the happiest. His days were always spent divided between two activities, wiling away the hours at the Auror Offices or loafing about with Moony at his little shack by the seaside. His nights, however, were always the same.
As soon as the time passed that he knew Lenka’s shop was closed he was there straight away, usually bringing along some Muggle take-out or, on Thursday at least, a toy he’d spotted in a Muggle shop that he thought Ivanka would like. Every night Lenka insisted that he shouldn’t have brought food, but that was her only protest before settling across from him at the little table and exchanging wry looks over the Wireless programs they listened to while they ate.
“Why d’you keep comingk over here?” she asked on Thursday night between glances at Ivanka with her new toy and bites of teriyaki chicken. Sirius put down his fork and raised his eyebrows at her, making her blush with the realization that she had not completely voiced her entire concern. “I mean, you do not ‘ave a girl or somet’ingk?” she added hastily. “Have you no family?”
Oh, well that was better than being annoyed by his presence. Happy, he picked up his fork again. “My family was so obsessed with their pure-blood mania that I left; naturally, they disowned me, but I don’t care. Not really. And I haven’t had a girl for a long time, now.” Not ever, actually, if he thought about it. He’d had women, certainly, but never had he actually considered them his girlfriends. Just playthings. And he wanted more than that, now. He wanted what James and Lily, and Frank and Alice had. “Figured I’d keep company with two lovely ladies rather than alone in my house.”
He raised his glass to Lenka’s mother and she smiled rather sweetly as she said something unintelligible to Lenka, who smiled bashfully and looked down at her plate.
Sirius’ head swiveled curiously between the women. “What? What’d she say?” he asked Lenka.
“She says you’re handsome,” translated the younger woman, amusement sparkling merrily in her eyes.
A grin stretched across his face. “How do I say ‘thanks’?”
She grinned back unabashedly. “You say ‘díky’.”
Sirius repeated the phrase a bit shakily to Lenka’s mother, who laughed and started jabbering away to the younger woman again as though nothing had happened. Sirius sat back in his chair and watched them talk for a while, their hands moving similarly while they spoke as though pulling the words out of the very air around them.
Ivanka, having finally warmed up to him after he gave her the little stuffed goose from the Muggle shop, waddled impressively over to him and started batting the animal against his knees. He tried to scoop her up like he did with Harry, but she whimpered and squirmed and ran over to her mum, hiding in the skirt of the Muggle dress she was wearing. Apparently she hadn’t completely warmed up to him yet.
Just as he was raising his fork to his mouth, content to sit quietly and make funny faces at Ivanka while Lenka and her mum talked, a silvery parrot flew silently through the window and landed on his shoulder. “There’s been another Fiendfyre, in Bath this time; the bastards are getting closer,” barked Moody’s voice before the bird faded into nothing.
Lenka had frozen mid-sentence and was staring, awestruck, at him. “Who was that?” she asked, looking shaken. Sirius remembered her encounter with the grizzly old Auror and fought a laugh.
“That was my boss, Moody,” he explained, fighting very hard not to let a smirk stretch his mouth. “Why? You don’t know him, do you?” However, when Lenka floundered helplessly for an explanation, he couldn’t stop himself. He grinned from ear to ear. “He said he’d met a pretty girl in the Alley the other night. I was wondering if it was you…”
She shook her head erratically, turning furiously red. “No. Not me.”
He grinned but said nothing, instead wiping his mouth on his napkin and putting his fork neatly on top of his plate. “Well, she sounded lovely, anyway,” he dismissed. “I’ve gotta run. See you tomorrow?”
Lenka’s tense smile spoke volumes, but Sirius had already gotten up to take his plate to the sink to wash it up and could not see her. He simply assumed she had nodded, and waved a bit glumly before letting himself out the front door.
A scowl marred his usually-handsome face as he plodded through the freshly rained-upon cobbled streets past the anti-Apparition fields that frightened shopowners had taken to putting up at night. It really was a hassle, but Sirius supposed it made some sort of sense. Even so, he hated having to walk halfway down the Alley just to Apparate somewhere.
He, when past the wards, Apparated to the designated home of a Squib couple located in Bath that were working closely with the Order. Craig McDonnell and his girlfriend Linda had to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, standing at the window together when he popped into being in their sitting room. Linda’s fingers were pressed shakily to her lips, and only Craig looked back over his shoulder at the commotion.
“We didn’t know there were any magical families near us,” said the young man shakily. Sirius didn’t bother pointing out that they weren’t a magical family, but that they were a Muggle family with a magical child. “We thought it was a gas explosion until your mate Peter showed up. Already had his Bubble-head Charm up when he arrived…”
There was a great resounding CRACK in the corner of the room, and James took for the door in a rapid frenzy, grabbing the hem of Sirius’ sleeve as he went.
Running down the street toward the fire with Bubble-head charms in place, Sirius felt a strange mixture of his usual fear and great, rushing excitement. Danger whispered up and down his veins, risk swelled his lungs with air, and the great threateningly swooping bird of death powered his muscles to move ever-faster. He outran James by several meters and was in the house by the time it had taken his friend just to get to the front garden.
They did a sweep of what areas of the house they could reach as quickly as possible, finding the kitchen and one open bedroom empty save for the cat, which James snatched up in a moment of pity. The poor creature yowled and dug its claws into his robes as they left the house and put up the wards and shields appropriate to choke and stifle the flames through their own destruction. The fire crawled up the wards, became the shields, and, the moment the protections died, ate itself and vanished.
Peter ran, gasping for air and drenched in sweat, from around the other side of the house and joined them, mopping his brow hastily on his sleeve. “S-someone on the other side must’ve warned the f-family,” he panted. “Whole house was empty, f-from what I could tell. Left the country.”
Both of them breathing heavily from how quickly they had been forced to go through the house to escape the rapidly-moving fire, Sirius and James nodded with relief and watched the fire to make sure it died out. A half hour passed by before it had consumed the fields and died, and then they set about Confunding the Muggles into thinking there was a gas leak that “must have caught a spark.”
He, James, and Peter exchanged dually exhausted and thrilled looks. Once again, the Order had won. No one had gotten hurt, not even the cat. Well, alright, apparently one rogue Death Eater had helped, but they had still set the fires, hadn’t they?
“Not much more we can do here, is there?” asked Peter once they had cast all the Confunding Charms they could on the neighborhood. They murmured their agreement and pocketed their wands.
“We’ll have to track them down, tell them when it’s safe to come back,” said James then, absent-mindedly stroking the yellow cat’s head with his free hand, and Sirius already knew at that moment that his mate’s good heart was going to win over and make him keep the cat. He’d always be the one to rescue little mice from the castle’s various cats or injured bowtruckles, and pitch a fit when he’d find Remus the next morning, either A) studying them, or B) performing autopsies on them if they happened to die.
They all let out small tired sighs and popped off to James’ for a quick celebratory drink before Sirius and Peter retreated home for the night. It had been a fast-paced and exhausting night.
Almost the very moment that he had locked the front door behind him, Sirius heard the impatient scratching and tapping of an owl at his kitchen window.
“Hello there, pretty bird,” he murmured absently as he unlatched the window and the lovely golden-brown owl hopped delicately inside, bearing a neatly-folded letter with his name written on it in an extremely cautious script.
Sirius,
I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you to the party tomorrow night. I just can’t stand leaving my mum on her own, especially with these attacks happening almost every night. I’m so sorry.
Love,
Lenka
The length of parchment the short note was written on was rather expansive, taken up by a large frenzied scribble. On the bottom a tiny note was scrawled:
PS: Ivanka sends her love.
Sirius smiled to himself and pored over the scribbles until he found what vaguely resembled a wonky sort of heart. It obviously was not intentional, but still made him pleased enough to rip away the message itself and Spellotape the scribbled picture to the wall above his headboard.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the evening’s half-light, his sweater smelling faintly of smoke and skin alive with the faint buzzing-tingling sensation that came with excessive spell-casting, Sirius tossed Lenka’s owl a few treats and began to feel bad for himself and also quite contented simultaneously. It was a strange contradiction that arose in him a peculiar melancholy, but set him to sleep with ease.
He dreamt of sitting with Lenka in the kitchen of a little house that was, inexplicably (as it happens in most dreams), theirs. They were both at least ten years older, though not much had changed other than the calendar on the wall.
Sirius turned the page of the Prophet and commented idly on one of the stories. In the next instant he looked up and saw Lenka’s eyes burning into him in a way they never had before. She swung a hand back, fully intending to slap him across the face, but the moment the palm of her hand made contact with his skin she exploded into a cloud of ashes, burning embers drifting down where her eyes, shining hair, and white teeth had been only a half of a moment ago.
He leaped to his feet, rubbing ashes from his eyes and sputtering, but whipped around to face the stairs when he heard a girl’s scream coming from one of the upper bedrooms. Ivanka.
Sirius took the stairs three at a time, leaning on the wall to avoid the loose bolt that ought to be holding the handrail in place, but when he burst into Ivanka’s pretty yellow bedroom the bed was empty and the window was swinging freely on its hinges, white curtains billowing in a nonexistent breeze.
He opened his eyes as flawlessly as though he had not even slept. It was seven AM.
What had that been about?
He could not get to sleep again no matter how hard he tried, and so he figured there was no time like the present to get up and prepare for the paperwork waiting for him at the Ministry. He spent all day at Auror Headquarters while James was at home helping Lily get the house tidied up for the party, filling out reports and drafting (and re-drafting) a response letter to Lenka, pleading with her all the reasons why she ought to change her mind. However, in the time that it took for him to compile a halfway-decent stack of reasons, between having to stuff the drafts under actual paperwork every time Moody stalked past and sitting staring into space as he thought of more reasons, it was half-past six and he was walking down the Alley into her shop.
Lenka did not seem very surprised when she looked up and saw him coming in, but her cheeks turned red. “Ahoj.”
“Ahoy.”
The corners of her mouth twitched - he still sounded rather like a pirate when he tried to say hello to her - as she swept the floor the Muggle way and straightened the shelves. The amusement faded quickly, though. “I’m not changing my mind,” she quickly said, avoiding his eyes. He could see the conflicted guilt and longing in her face even when she tried not to look at him.
Sirius shrugged his shoulder and sat perched on the edge of her desk, instantly forgetting every single reason he had come up with for her to change her mind and abruptly forced to work with only his quick wits. Ah well, it had worked well enough for him in detention, hadn’t it? “Alright then,” he said without knowing what would come next. “I’ll stay with you, then.”
Her eyes instantly narrowed and her brows suspiciously furrowed. “What are you on about?” she asked with arms crossed, her lilting accent suddenly making him want to hear her sing a ballad. “It’s your godson’s birthday; you should not miss it.” Watching him all the while, she lowered her self into the chair behind the desk. She had to lean back in the chair to see him better. Gods, she was so small! He was again swept up in the desire to tuck her away in his pocket and pull her out every time he was feeling down just so he could look upon her smallness and grin.
Pushing away his strange fantasies, Sirius adopted his most innocent and pious face. “Well, if you’re so very frightened of the Fiendfyre Fiend, just one allegedly-Muggleborn girl out of thousands of Muggleborns in the country, that you can’t even leave your home for one night, then I think someone ought to stay with you a while. To make sure you feel safe, you know. It’s only Harry’s first birthday; I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Lenka shot him a darkly suspicious look as she leaned her arms on the desk. Her chin soon lowered down upon her arms as well. “I’m not frightened for myself, if that’s what you’re at,” she pointed out, picking idly at a loose thread in the sleeve of his sweater. He gave her a pointed look and she stopped, smiling a bit anxiously. “It’s just my mudder I worry for, being alone. If anyone were to know about her…”
She trailed off then, looking suddenly as awkward as Sirius felt; she had confided in him the state of her mother’s “condition”, and told him that he was the only person in England who ought to know. “That’s not what I meant,” she hastily remedied.
“You can’t put up protective wards for just an hour or two?” he asked imploringly, putting on his puppy-dog eyes. This argument had to be fool-proof, because she had left for at least three hours a few days before with only wards up to protect bother her mum and Ivanka. He tilted his head down toward hers and smiled softly, taking it down a notch to catch her off-guard. It worked superbly; she blinked and leaned back slightly. “Come on, Lenka, come with me for just a while. Bring ‘Vanka along; she can play with Harry and Neville. Have a drink or two, eat some cake, dance to the Wireless with me, just for an hour or two. It’ll be fine.”
For a moment their faces were inches apart, close enough to sneak a kiss that would break the tension, but Lenka’s eyes were so stern and her lips so tightly pinched in an inane attempt at seriousness that he might accidentally swallow her if he tried. Then she finally softened into a resigned sort of smile. “Fine,” she conceded, “I’ll go.” With all the authority of a mother, she pointed one stern finger into his face. “But only for an hour, okay? Then I go home and you do not argue, yeah?”
Sirius grinned from ear-to-ear. Victory. “Alright. Shall we?”
Lenka smiled and shook her head, eyes sparkling with the knowledge that she had been fully aware of what he had been doing all along. “I ‘ave to go talk to Mum, and get Ivanka. And maybe change my clothes…”
Sirius’ eyes widened as though with horror. “Oh, you’re not going to change your clothes!”
“And if I am?” she asked cheekily over her shoulder as he followed her into the flat. “You are goingk to leave wit’out me?”
He grinned back at her and crouched down to meet Ivanka as she hobbled excitedly over (probably hoping for another present). He held out his hands, wondering if she would get shy with him and run away as she had before; she grabbed onto his arm with her pudgy little fingers squeezing softly to keep balanced on her still-ungainly legs, and then stood benignly between his hands.
Cautiously, as though waiting for her to scream her head off, Sirius picked the little girl up and held her close to him. “Hey, you,” he said softly. She smiled, and he felt such a sudden rush of love for the child that it was as if he had been hit in the chest by a Bludger’s bat. “Lenka?”
“Yeah?” she called. Her bedroom door was ajar so they could hear one another, and every once in a while he caught the briefest glimpse of Lenka walking past in various forms of dress (or undress).
He called back, “I’ve got the baby; I’ll be upstairs with your mum,” as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and for a moment, it felt like it was.
Lenka poked her head out the bedroom door; Sirius could see part of her brassiere (white). She seemed surprised at the sight of Ivanka sitting so contentedly in his arms, and nodded, “Oh, okay,” before ducking back into the room.
Hitching Ivanka a bit higher on his hip, Sirius took her through the shop and up the staircase that led to the studio. “We’re gonna go see Granny, Ivanka!” he said, playfully bouncing the giggling girl as he ascended. He would never admit it to his bloke friends, but he absolutely adored this tiny girl and would never tire of playing with her. Lily would be pleased to hear it, but Moony certainly would never let him live it down.
The unexpected thought of Remus made his gut wrench anxiously, as it had done so occasionally over the past few weeks. The little gathering tonight, under the façade of Harry and Neville Longbottom’s double-birthday party, was actually tripling as Moony’s good-luck-farewell-safe-voyage-send-off party, as he was to leave the next afternoon for Abraham Kane’s feral camp. He would be gone from decent friends and civilization until the New Year.
Sirius pushed the worrisome thought from his head as Lenka’s mother started cheerily chatting at him in Czech as she finished framing the portrait. He didn’t think she expected him to understand, but it was a small comfort to know that she at least enjoyed talking to him.
He thanked the older woman profusely as he shrank the covered portrait and stowed it safely in an inner pocket of his jacket. He handed over the Galleons for it without any feeling of disheartenment whatsoever, and even added a bit extra under the assumption that the woman wouldn’t know how to count it. Surely enough she placed the tiny leather pouch on a side table without so much as a glance, shook Sirius’ hand vigorously, and followed him back down the stairs where Lenka had finished dressing.
She was in another of those East-European sets of filmy robes, her top a faded yellow and bottoms deep blood-red. The flowers along the hems were midnight blue, and half of her hair was tied back and she looked just lovely.
“Madam, you look delicious,” announced Sirius, and Lenka grinned broadly as though trying not to laugh. She never did laugh, did she? Not really. He held out the arm not already occupied with a toddler in the way that years of bored-to-tears Black Family Christmas parties had taught him. “Shall we?”
Her face turned to a calmer, more radiant smile, and a bashfully rosy tint painted her cheeks with warmth. She closed her hand, softly as a whisper, around his elbow, and looked up at him with so much naked trust that he took in too deep of a breath and hurt himself a bit. She looked over her shoulder at her mum and said something to her briefly in Czech before nodding up at him with an almost nervous-looking smile.
As he opened the door for her to go out to the shop first, he looked back at Lenka’s mother. “Díky, again, really. I’ll, uh…” He waved his wand vaguely to show her that she would be protected in their absence; she nodded gratefully.
They walked together down the street just as it began to come alive with other young couples going about their dates and engagements. Sirius couldn’t help but feel like one of them when Lenka wrapped her arm more securely around his. “Are you nervous?” he asked her. Her grip tightened slightly, but she shook her head firmly. “Good, don’t be. Everyone loves you already. Matter of fact, they probably like me a lot less than they like you by now.”
The young woman’s eyebrows vanished under her fringe. “Why? What did you do?”
Sirius grinned and, in a moment of reckless, wild abandon, leaned down to press his mouth to the crown of her head in what could be considered either a kiss or just an affectionate nuzzle. “I haven’t stopped singing your praises for days.”
Lenka grinned, though she looked puzzled as well. “What is there to be singingk about?”
Sirius shrugged. “What isn’t there?”
She shook her head and grinned goofily, leaning against his arm for a moment as they approached the end of the Anti-Apparition wards in the fading sunlight.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sirius Black, James Potter, Lily Potter, Remus Lupin, Lenka Myskova
(OC), Ivanka Myskova (OC), Mrs. Myskova (OC), Peter Pettigrew, Harry Potter, Various Order Members
Pairings: James/Lily, Sirius/Lenka(OC)
Warnings: Sexual Themes and Issues
Summary: Sirius Black has always been the one to keep going and going, but finally meets someone who makes him pause.
Word Count: 5,673
Part 1
Part 2
Later on, Sirius and Lenka sat together on the back stoop of her shop, sipping hot tea and watching Muggles shuffle about on their way home from late-evening endeavors. The building was rather unnoticeable on this side to the non-magical folk, of course, appearing only to them as a darkened apartment complex. She told him a little about her life in Czechia, and how glad she had been to find a place in England on “the border”, because her mum was sometimes afraid of their world and could get away for a while if she wanted to.
“She hated bringingk me to school,” the young woman reminisced with a faint smile. “We would go to train station togedder, but she would never see me off at the train, she’d wait on the Muggle side. I t’ink she is afraid that they would look at her and know she is not like them. She took her fear a bit too far, but it was not unreasonable. Durmstrang…”
Her hands gestured feebly, as though trying to capture the rest of the sentence in her thin fingers, and Sirius took the subtle chaos of the movement as a negative ending. “Is it as bad as everyone makes it out to be?”
An attempt at a noncommittal noise issued from somewhere deep in Lenka’s throat, but she nevertheless put down her tea and started chewing her thumbnail absently.
“If I ‘ad stayed on, I would know 50 ways to kill you,” she admitted softly after a long silence, avoiding his eyes. “As it is, I know 35.”
Sirius couldn’t help feeling slightly unsettled by that information, but looking at the way Lenka’s shoulders were squared, mouth twisted bitterly, eyebrows furrowed, he could tell that the fact disturbed her too.
“Dark Arts are taught, but not forced upon us,” she continued hastily, in an obvious attempt to defend her school. “And Defense is offered, though we are only really taught spells to control the Dark things, like the Patronus…”
“You can cast a Patronus?” he interrupted a bit rudely, surprise making him tactless. “A corporeal one?”
Smiling faintly, she looked up and down the street three times to be certain there were no Muggles around, pulled her wand deftly from her the waistband of her trousers, and whispered, “Expecto Patronum.” A silvery-white goose burst from the end of her wand, flew silently and as gracefully as a goose possibly could across the street and back to them before vanishing into the night. The street seemed much darker to Sirius’ eyes afterward. She placed her wand on the step beside her. “I, uh, I am taught when I am fourteen.”
Sirius let out a low whistle and she smiled more widely, looking pleased with herself. He nodded solemnly, and then, as a compulsion, it occurred to him to teach her how to send messaged with her Patronus. She picked it up more quickly than others had, simply because others had had to take the extra time to learn the Patronus itself. “Fourteen…wow. So you took the class, then?” His tone was light, teasingly mischievous only because he was a bit jealous that this scrawny young woman had learned a spell as a girl that he had not until he was seventeen.
She laughed softly and nodded. “Yeah, I took the class wit’ all my friends, an’ we were the only ones who showed up. Poor Professor Vladovski, he said we were smallest class he ever had.”
Sirius, baffled, tried to think of a number that would be small enough to be a group of friends that could be influenced by Lenka’s charms, and yet large enough to still be considered a class. “So, there were, what, ten of you? Twelve?”
Lenka’s eyebrows shot incredulously up into her fringe. “Six,” she corrected.
“Six of you? In the whole class?”
She laughed again; it was a lovely genuine sort of laugh and Sirius was determined to hear it as often as possible. “Told you it was small,” she nodded. “I’was me, Lucina Jarunkova, Irena Strbova, Milo Korinkov, Henrich Weber (German, but we don’t judge him too harshly, ha ha), and Pavel Rosta.” She counted them off on her fingers, with great fondness evident in her face and voice, and Sirius couldn’t help but wonder if, with the group so neatly and elegantly paired off, one of those boys she mentioned was Ivanka’s father.
As if she were able to read his mind, Lenka met his eyes and shook her head. Oh. “I’m not goingk to tell you about him,” she insisted, though it held the same sort of light, teasing tone that he’d used earlier.
She yawned impressively and stretched her arms high up over her head before picking up their empty mugs and standing. “It’s gettingk late; you should probably go home.”
Guilt instantly washed over Sirius. She was kicking him out because of his big mouth, again. Merlin. He shot to his feet instantly, knowing that it was better to get a head-start on his arse-kissing. “Lenka, I’m sorry, I won’t pry anymore, I promise.”
Lenka straightened from where she’d leaned over to pick up her wand and tuck it back into her waistband, looking taken aback and perplexed by his apology. She pushed her long hair from her eyes, smiling with bemusement. “Um, okay?” His relief seemed only to amuse her further. “But it’s still getting late. And you still should go home.”
Sirius really couldn’t help laughing at himself as Lenka led the way back into the dark flat. Her mum had gone to bed around the same time that Ivanka fell asleep. “I’d only thought you were mad, as I was being so nosy,” he explained. She nodded over her shoulder at him, rinsing the mugs in the sink and then setting the rest of the dishes to wash themselves, but otherwise said nothing as they walked together to the Alley entrance.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna go for a walk, or a coffee?” he asked the moment his feet touched the cobblestones. He found himself inexplicably reluctant to leave, wanting to talk to her more and more. “Maybe hit a few Muggle night clubs, shake it up a bit?” Get sloshed and make sweet love on the kitchen floor? No, Padfoot!
She laughed and shook her head from the doorway. “You know I can’t.”
He had rather expected that answer, but disappointment was still a blunt punch to the chest. Not wanting to lie awake all night worrying about her wandering off again, he hoped that his almost nonstop pestering had worn her out, or that her little adventure in Knockturn the night before had been a one-time act of desperation that would not be repeated. And he could only watch her in Lily’s mirror so many times without feeling like a stalker. Lily! Good Lord, the Potters were good friends to have around!
He stopped mid-turn to make it look like he had been about to Apparate, and instead looked up at her again. “Oh, by the by, do you think the portrait of Harry’ll be done by Saturday night?”
Lenka thoughtfully pursed her lips for a few moments, and then nodded. “Yeah, should be. You need it by then?”
“Yeah,” replied Sirius, digging his hands into his pockets and sashaying a bit nearer to her, “that’s when I’d like to give it to his parents. It’s his birthday, see, and they’re a having a bit of a party. Little thing, nothing fancy.”
Crossing her arms dubiously across her chest, Lenka leaned against the doorframe and smiled at him with amusement dancing merrily in her eyes, as if she knew what was coming.
Sirius, so carried away with the sound of his own voice carrying such a convincingly eloquent story, had been about to feign a revelation - gasp, raised eyebrows and all that - but deflated slightly when the young woman moved into that position. Well, might as well go for honesty again. It had worked so well before. “James and Lily said I could bring along a date.”
Bugger.
“I mean, uh, a friend.”
Better, but cover your tracks, man!
“Y’know a friend-date type of deal.”
She was smiling; hopefully that was a good sign. He felt almost weak with his own embarrassment. What the hell had happened to the suave young pup he had been not but four months ago with that witch in Hogsmeade who vaguely resembled Celestina Warbeck?
“So, uh, what d’you say? It’s at seven.”
Looking away from him down the Alley, half of her was bathed in shadow, but the part of her face that he could see appeared to be smiling. “Yeah, okay,” she agreed after a moment’s thought. “I’ll try to make it.”
He could have spun a cartwheel and whooped for joy, but had a feeling that it would disturb Lenka slightly. Instead he merely grinned and gently shook one fist to restrain himself from punching the air. “Brilliant,” he said, dropping his hand down to his side. “Alright, cool, it’ll be fun.”
“Sounds like it,” she nodded, uncrossing her arms.
Elated by her acceptance, Sirius nodded. “Okay. I’d better be off now. If I don’t see you, I’ll see you Saturday!” He stepped back down onto the street and was about to Disapparate when Lenka’s voice, barely audible but yearned for a listening ear, stopped him.
“I don’t…I don’t talk about him, much. Not because his memory brings me pain,” she explained while Sirius stared raptly into her face. “That part of my life is over now, yeah? I turn over a new leaf here.”
Suitably whelmed, Sirius buried his hands in his pockets again. “Fair enough.”
Something seemed to pass between them then, something tangible and nearly visible that made his chest ache and stomach churn. Then she gave him a little wave and smile before vanishing into the dark shop. He stared after her for a long time before popping back to his house.
It was past midnight, he realized with a jolt as he glanced at the clock beside his bed. The dark and quiet of the tiny house seemed to press in on him as he sat alone on the edge of the bed. He recalled suddenly another lonely person curled on the edge of another bed; suddenly his seemed rather large. He kicked off his shoes but otherwise remained fully clothed as he crawled between the blankets and one of the many quilts Mrs. Figg had supplied for the Order last Christmas, warm and comfortable and well-loved by many; it was much more than he could say of the bed of the girl he had just left. Her sheets were ordinary, plain of pattern and mattress void of signs of affection that came with even just a special blanket or pillow.
He leaned back against his pillows and stared at the ceiling for a long time before sleep could find him.
The next five days had been some of the most arduously dull he had ever been through in his life, and yet also some of the happiest. His days were always spent divided between two activities, wiling away the hours at the Auror Offices or loafing about with Moony at his little shack by the seaside. His nights, however, were always the same.
As soon as the time passed that he knew Lenka’s shop was closed he was there straight away, usually bringing along some Muggle take-out or, on Thursday at least, a toy he’d spotted in a Muggle shop that he thought Ivanka would like. Every night Lenka insisted that he shouldn’t have brought food, but that was her only protest before settling across from him at the little table and exchanging wry looks over the Wireless programs they listened to while they ate.
“Why d’you keep comingk over here?” she asked on Thursday night between glances at Ivanka with her new toy and bites of teriyaki chicken. Sirius put down his fork and raised his eyebrows at her, making her blush with the realization that she had not completely voiced her entire concern. “I mean, you do not ‘ave a girl or somet’ingk?” she added hastily. “Have you no family?”
Oh, well that was better than being annoyed by his presence. Happy, he picked up his fork again. “My family was so obsessed with their pure-blood mania that I left; naturally, they disowned me, but I don’t care. Not really. And I haven’t had a girl for a long time, now.” Not ever, actually, if he thought about it. He’d had women, certainly, but never had he actually considered them his girlfriends. Just playthings. And he wanted more than that, now. He wanted what James and Lily, and Frank and Alice had. “Figured I’d keep company with two lovely ladies rather than alone in my house.”
He raised his glass to Lenka’s mother and she smiled rather sweetly as she said something unintelligible to Lenka, who smiled bashfully and looked down at her plate.
Sirius’ head swiveled curiously between the women. “What? What’d she say?” he asked Lenka.
“She says you’re handsome,” translated the younger woman, amusement sparkling merrily in her eyes.
A grin stretched across his face. “How do I say ‘thanks’?”
She grinned back unabashedly. “You say ‘díky’.”
Sirius repeated the phrase a bit shakily to Lenka’s mother, who laughed and started jabbering away to the younger woman again as though nothing had happened. Sirius sat back in his chair and watched them talk for a while, their hands moving similarly while they spoke as though pulling the words out of the very air around them.
Ivanka, having finally warmed up to him after he gave her the little stuffed goose from the Muggle shop, waddled impressively over to him and started batting the animal against his knees. He tried to scoop her up like he did with Harry, but she whimpered and squirmed and ran over to her mum, hiding in the skirt of the Muggle dress she was wearing. Apparently she hadn’t completely warmed up to him yet.
Just as he was raising his fork to his mouth, content to sit quietly and make funny faces at Ivanka while Lenka and her mum talked, a silvery parrot flew silently through the window and landed on his shoulder. “There’s been another Fiendfyre, in Bath this time; the bastards are getting closer,” barked Moody’s voice before the bird faded into nothing.
Lenka had frozen mid-sentence and was staring, awestruck, at him. “Who was that?” she asked, looking shaken. Sirius remembered her encounter with the grizzly old Auror and fought a laugh.
“That was my boss, Moody,” he explained, fighting very hard not to let a smirk stretch his mouth. “Why? You don’t know him, do you?” However, when Lenka floundered helplessly for an explanation, he couldn’t stop himself. He grinned from ear to ear. “He said he’d met a pretty girl in the Alley the other night. I was wondering if it was you…”
She shook her head erratically, turning furiously red. “No. Not me.”
He grinned but said nothing, instead wiping his mouth on his napkin and putting his fork neatly on top of his plate. “Well, she sounded lovely, anyway,” he dismissed. “I’ve gotta run. See you tomorrow?”
Lenka’s tense smile spoke volumes, but Sirius had already gotten up to take his plate to the sink to wash it up and could not see her. He simply assumed she had nodded, and waved a bit glumly before letting himself out the front door.
A scowl marred his usually-handsome face as he plodded through the freshly rained-upon cobbled streets past the anti-Apparition fields that frightened shopowners had taken to putting up at night. It really was a hassle, but Sirius supposed it made some sort of sense. Even so, he hated having to walk halfway down the Alley just to Apparate somewhere.
He, when past the wards, Apparated to the designated home of a Squib couple located in Bath that were working closely with the Order. Craig McDonnell and his girlfriend Linda had to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, standing at the window together when he popped into being in their sitting room. Linda’s fingers were pressed shakily to her lips, and only Craig looked back over his shoulder at the commotion.
“We didn’t know there were any magical families near us,” said the young man shakily. Sirius didn’t bother pointing out that they weren’t a magical family, but that they were a Muggle family with a magical child. “We thought it was a gas explosion until your mate Peter showed up. Already had his Bubble-head Charm up when he arrived…”
There was a great resounding CRACK in the corner of the room, and James took for the door in a rapid frenzy, grabbing the hem of Sirius’ sleeve as he went.
Running down the street toward the fire with Bubble-head charms in place, Sirius felt a strange mixture of his usual fear and great, rushing excitement. Danger whispered up and down his veins, risk swelled his lungs with air, and the great threateningly swooping bird of death powered his muscles to move ever-faster. He outran James by several meters and was in the house by the time it had taken his friend just to get to the front garden.
They did a sweep of what areas of the house they could reach as quickly as possible, finding the kitchen and one open bedroom empty save for the cat, which James snatched up in a moment of pity. The poor creature yowled and dug its claws into his robes as they left the house and put up the wards and shields appropriate to choke and stifle the flames through their own destruction. The fire crawled up the wards, became the shields, and, the moment the protections died, ate itself and vanished.
Peter ran, gasping for air and drenched in sweat, from around the other side of the house and joined them, mopping his brow hastily on his sleeve. “S-someone on the other side must’ve warned the f-family,” he panted. “Whole house was empty, f-from what I could tell. Left the country.”
Both of them breathing heavily from how quickly they had been forced to go through the house to escape the rapidly-moving fire, Sirius and James nodded with relief and watched the fire to make sure it died out. A half hour passed by before it had consumed the fields and died, and then they set about Confunding the Muggles into thinking there was a gas leak that “must have caught a spark.”
He, James, and Peter exchanged dually exhausted and thrilled looks. Once again, the Order had won. No one had gotten hurt, not even the cat. Well, alright, apparently one rogue Death Eater had helped, but they had still set the fires, hadn’t they?
“Not much more we can do here, is there?” asked Peter once they had cast all the Confunding Charms they could on the neighborhood. They murmured their agreement and pocketed their wands.
“We’ll have to track them down, tell them when it’s safe to come back,” said James then, absent-mindedly stroking the yellow cat’s head with his free hand, and Sirius already knew at that moment that his mate’s good heart was going to win over and make him keep the cat. He’d always be the one to rescue little mice from the castle’s various cats or injured bowtruckles, and pitch a fit when he’d find Remus the next morning, either A) studying them, or B) performing autopsies on them if they happened to die.
They all let out small tired sighs and popped off to James’ for a quick celebratory drink before Sirius and Peter retreated home for the night. It had been a fast-paced and exhausting night.
Almost the very moment that he had locked the front door behind him, Sirius heard the impatient scratching and tapping of an owl at his kitchen window.
“Hello there, pretty bird,” he murmured absently as he unlatched the window and the lovely golden-brown owl hopped delicately inside, bearing a neatly-folded letter with his name written on it in an extremely cautious script.
Sirius,
I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you to the party tomorrow night. I just can’t stand leaving my mum on her own, especially with these attacks happening almost every night. I’m so sorry.
Love,
Lenka
The length of parchment the short note was written on was rather expansive, taken up by a large frenzied scribble. On the bottom a tiny note was scrawled:
PS: Ivanka sends her love.
Sirius smiled to himself and pored over the scribbles until he found what vaguely resembled a wonky sort of heart. It obviously was not intentional, but still made him pleased enough to rip away the message itself and Spellotape the scribbled picture to the wall above his headboard.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the evening’s half-light, his sweater smelling faintly of smoke and skin alive with the faint buzzing-tingling sensation that came with excessive spell-casting, Sirius tossed Lenka’s owl a few treats and began to feel bad for himself and also quite contented simultaneously. It was a strange contradiction that arose in him a peculiar melancholy, but set him to sleep with ease.
He dreamt of sitting with Lenka in the kitchen of a little house that was, inexplicably (as it happens in most dreams), theirs. They were both at least ten years older, though not much had changed other than the calendar on the wall.
Sirius turned the page of the Prophet and commented idly on one of the stories. In the next instant he looked up and saw Lenka’s eyes burning into him in a way they never had before. She swung a hand back, fully intending to slap him across the face, but the moment the palm of her hand made contact with his skin she exploded into a cloud of ashes, burning embers drifting down where her eyes, shining hair, and white teeth had been only a half of a moment ago.
He leaped to his feet, rubbing ashes from his eyes and sputtering, but whipped around to face the stairs when he heard a girl’s scream coming from one of the upper bedrooms. Ivanka.
Sirius took the stairs three at a time, leaning on the wall to avoid the loose bolt that ought to be holding the handrail in place, but when he burst into Ivanka’s pretty yellow bedroom the bed was empty and the window was swinging freely on its hinges, white curtains billowing in a nonexistent breeze.
He opened his eyes as flawlessly as though he had not even slept. It was seven AM.
What had that been about?
He could not get to sleep again no matter how hard he tried, and so he figured there was no time like the present to get up and prepare for the paperwork waiting for him at the Ministry. He spent all day at Auror Headquarters while James was at home helping Lily get the house tidied up for the party, filling out reports and drafting (and re-drafting) a response letter to Lenka, pleading with her all the reasons why she ought to change her mind. However, in the time that it took for him to compile a halfway-decent stack of reasons, between having to stuff the drafts under actual paperwork every time Moody stalked past and sitting staring into space as he thought of more reasons, it was half-past six and he was walking down the Alley into her shop.
Lenka did not seem very surprised when she looked up and saw him coming in, but her cheeks turned red. “Ahoj.”
“Ahoy.”
The corners of her mouth twitched - he still sounded rather like a pirate when he tried to say hello to her - as she swept the floor the Muggle way and straightened the shelves. The amusement faded quickly, though. “I’m not changing my mind,” she quickly said, avoiding his eyes. He could see the conflicted guilt and longing in her face even when she tried not to look at him.
Sirius shrugged his shoulder and sat perched on the edge of her desk, instantly forgetting every single reason he had come up with for her to change her mind and abruptly forced to work with only his quick wits. Ah well, it had worked well enough for him in detention, hadn’t it? “Alright then,” he said without knowing what would come next. “I’ll stay with you, then.”
Her eyes instantly narrowed and her brows suspiciously furrowed. “What are you on about?” she asked with arms crossed, her lilting accent suddenly making him want to hear her sing a ballad. “It’s your godson’s birthday; you should not miss it.” Watching him all the while, she lowered her self into the chair behind the desk. She had to lean back in the chair to see him better. Gods, she was so small! He was again swept up in the desire to tuck her away in his pocket and pull her out every time he was feeling down just so he could look upon her smallness and grin.
Pushing away his strange fantasies, Sirius adopted his most innocent and pious face. “Well, if you’re so very frightened of the Fiendfyre Fiend, just one allegedly-Muggleborn girl out of thousands of Muggleborns in the country, that you can’t even leave your home for one night, then I think someone ought to stay with you a while. To make sure you feel safe, you know. It’s only Harry’s first birthday; I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Lenka shot him a darkly suspicious look as she leaned her arms on the desk. Her chin soon lowered down upon her arms as well. “I’m not frightened for myself, if that’s what you’re at,” she pointed out, picking idly at a loose thread in the sleeve of his sweater. He gave her a pointed look and she stopped, smiling a bit anxiously. “It’s just my mudder I worry for, being alone. If anyone were to know about her…”
She trailed off then, looking suddenly as awkward as Sirius felt; she had confided in him the state of her mother’s “condition”, and told him that he was the only person in England who ought to know. “That’s not what I meant,” she hastily remedied.
“You can’t put up protective wards for just an hour or two?” he asked imploringly, putting on his puppy-dog eyes. This argument had to be fool-proof, because she had left for at least three hours a few days before with only wards up to protect bother her mum and Ivanka. He tilted his head down toward hers and smiled softly, taking it down a notch to catch her off-guard. It worked superbly; she blinked and leaned back slightly. “Come on, Lenka, come with me for just a while. Bring ‘Vanka along; she can play with Harry and Neville. Have a drink or two, eat some cake, dance to the Wireless with me, just for an hour or two. It’ll be fine.”
For a moment their faces were inches apart, close enough to sneak a kiss that would break the tension, but Lenka’s eyes were so stern and her lips so tightly pinched in an inane attempt at seriousness that he might accidentally swallow her if he tried. Then she finally softened into a resigned sort of smile. “Fine,” she conceded, “I’ll go.” With all the authority of a mother, she pointed one stern finger into his face. “But only for an hour, okay? Then I go home and you do not argue, yeah?”
Sirius grinned from ear-to-ear. Victory. “Alright. Shall we?”
Lenka smiled and shook her head, eyes sparkling with the knowledge that she had been fully aware of what he had been doing all along. “I ‘ave to go talk to Mum, and get Ivanka. And maybe change my clothes…”
Sirius’ eyes widened as though with horror. “Oh, you’re not going to change your clothes!”
“And if I am?” she asked cheekily over her shoulder as he followed her into the flat. “You are goingk to leave wit’out me?”
He grinned back at her and crouched down to meet Ivanka as she hobbled excitedly over (probably hoping for another present). He held out his hands, wondering if she would get shy with him and run away as she had before; she grabbed onto his arm with her pudgy little fingers squeezing softly to keep balanced on her still-ungainly legs, and then stood benignly between his hands.
Cautiously, as though waiting for her to scream her head off, Sirius picked the little girl up and held her close to him. “Hey, you,” he said softly. She smiled, and he felt such a sudden rush of love for the child that it was as if he had been hit in the chest by a Bludger’s bat. “Lenka?”
“Yeah?” she called. Her bedroom door was ajar so they could hear one another, and every once in a while he caught the briefest glimpse of Lenka walking past in various forms of dress (or undress).
He called back, “I’ve got the baby; I’ll be upstairs with your mum,” as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and for a moment, it felt like it was.
Lenka poked her head out the bedroom door; Sirius could see part of her brassiere (white). She seemed surprised at the sight of Ivanka sitting so contentedly in his arms, and nodded, “Oh, okay,” before ducking back into the room.
Hitching Ivanka a bit higher on his hip, Sirius took her through the shop and up the staircase that led to the studio. “We’re gonna go see Granny, Ivanka!” he said, playfully bouncing the giggling girl as he ascended. He would never admit it to his bloke friends, but he absolutely adored this tiny girl and would never tire of playing with her. Lily would be pleased to hear it, but Moony certainly would never let him live it down.
The unexpected thought of Remus made his gut wrench anxiously, as it had done so occasionally over the past few weeks. The little gathering tonight, under the façade of Harry and Neville Longbottom’s double-birthday party, was actually tripling as Moony’s good-luck-farewell-safe-voyage-send-off party, as he was to leave the next afternoon for Abraham Kane’s feral camp. He would be gone from decent friends and civilization until the New Year.
Sirius pushed the worrisome thought from his head as Lenka’s mother started cheerily chatting at him in Czech as she finished framing the portrait. He didn’t think she expected him to understand, but it was a small comfort to know that she at least enjoyed talking to him.
He thanked the older woman profusely as he shrank the covered portrait and stowed it safely in an inner pocket of his jacket. He handed over the Galleons for it without any feeling of disheartenment whatsoever, and even added a bit extra under the assumption that the woman wouldn’t know how to count it. Surely enough she placed the tiny leather pouch on a side table without so much as a glance, shook Sirius’ hand vigorously, and followed him back down the stairs where Lenka had finished dressing.
She was in another of those East-European sets of filmy robes, her top a faded yellow and bottoms deep blood-red. The flowers along the hems were midnight blue, and half of her hair was tied back and she looked just lovely.
“Madam, you look delicious,” announced Sirius, and Lenka grinned broadly as though trying not to laugh. She never did laugh, did she? Not really. He held out the arm not already occupied with a toddler in the way that years of bored-to-tears Black Family Christmas parties had taught him. “Shall we?”
Her face turned to a calmer, more radiant smile, and a bashfully rosy tint painted her cheeks with warmth. She closed her hand, softly as a whisper, around his elbow, and looked up at him with so much naked trust that he took in too deep of a breath and hurt himself a bit. She looked over her shoulder at her mum and said something to her briefly in Czech before nodding up at him with an almost nervous-looking smile.
As he opened the door for her to go out to the shop first, he looked back at Lenka’s mother. “Díky, again, really. I’ll, uh…” He waved his wand vaguely to show her that she would be protected in their absence; she nodded gratefully.
They walked together down the street just as it began to come alive with other young couples going about their dates and engagements. Sirius couldn’t help but feel like one of them when Lenka wrapped her arm more securely around his. “Are you nervous?” he asked her. Her grip tightened slightly, but she shook her head firmly. “Good, don’t be. Everyone loves you already. Matter of fact, they probably like me a lot less than they like you by now.”
The young woman’s eyebrows vanished under her fringe. “Why? What did you do?”
Sirius grinned and, in a moment of reckless, wild abandon, leaned down to press his mouth to the crown of her head in what could be considered either a kiss or just an affectionate nuzzle. “I haven’t stopped singing your praises for days.”
Lenka grinned, though she looked puzzled as well. “What is there to be singingk about?”
Sirius shrugged. “What isn’t there?”
She shook her head and grinned goofily, leaning against his arm for a moment as they approached the end of the Anti-Apparition wards in the fading sunlight.