Ginny Weasley had been observing Lavender Brown for some time.
She suspected the girl had a thing for her brother, Ron Weasley.
Evidence one: whenever Ron said something he thought was clever—or spectacularly stupid—in the common room, Lavender always laughed along, rather than rolling her eyes like everyone else.
Evidence two: whenever Ron passed by her, or happened to sit down near her at the Gryffindor table, a faint blush appeared on Lavender's cheeks, and she would start talking to her friends at a noticeably higher pitch.
Evidence three: whenever Ron spoke to her directly, she would begin fidgeting with her hair or fussing over a sparkly hair clip.
"In short," Ginny had said during a late-night chat with Hermione a few days earlier, ticking the points off her fingers, "she just wants his attention."
"Isn't that lovely?" Hermione had replied, without much interest. "Ron does seem to like outgoing, lively girls."
"He's such a blockhead—he's perfectly comfortable talking to her—but why won't he make a move?" Ginny said. "Her signals couldn't be any clearer!"
"Oh, Ginny." Hermione recalled something her mother had once said. "Boys this age are still late bloomers. For them, building a card castle is more entertaining than dating."
"That simply won't do!" Ginny said, with great determination. "Someone has to step up and put those ridiculous rumours to rest!"
"Do you still care about those novels?" Hermione said.
"Just because you don't want to read them doesn't mean nobody else does! I don't like this at all." Ginny made up her mind. "I'm going to find a way to get Ron and Lavender together!"
"Is that really a good idea?" Hermione asked, with some hesitation. "We can't force two people—"
"I'm not forcing anyone! They clearly like each other." Ginny smiled her most meaningful smile. "I just want to give the fire a little air. Whether it catches or not is up to them."
---
Then at noon that day, when Ginny was flatly ignored by Krum—who was in a great hurry to chase Hermione—she turned away in a huff and dropped into the nearest available Gryffindor seat.
Hermione probably wouldn't be telling her anything useful tonight, she thought. She sighed irritably, barely registering Colin Creevey's enthusiastic chatter about the Forbidden Forest behind her.
"Ginny Weasley, you look sad! Here—I've got some!"
She looked up in surprise. Lavender Brown was standing beside her, holding out a slip of parchment bearing Viktor Krum's autograph.
"Take it," Lavender said cheerfully. "A friend's sister collected loads of Krum signatures for chance-encounter purposes. She had plenty to spare."
"Oh—thank you," Ginny said softly. She studied Lavender's warm smile, and an idea struck her immediately. "You're Lavender Brown, aren't you?"
"You know me?" Lavender said, delighted. "Most people don't bother remembering my name, even though I always remember theirs."
"My brother mentions you quite a lot, actually." Ginny smiled with perfectly calibrated sweetness. "He's always saying how pretty you are, and things like that."
"Really?" Lavender's face lit up. "I can't imagine why—"
"He's right, you are very pretty." Ginny maintained the same sweet, innocent tone. "By the way—would you sign the back of this parchment for me? I'd love to keep it as a memento."
"If you insist!" Lavender said warmly, and signed with a flourish, adding the blessing: May you always be smiling.
The parchment, with its still-wet ink, lay innocently on the table. The smiling girl across from Lavender had very different plans for it.
A few minutes later, everything became clear. The parchment had found a new owner—a freckled, red-haired boy—who turned it over in his hands and examined it from every angle.
"Another autograph!" Ron exclaimed. "Just when I thought my Krum collection was running dry! Ginny, I don't know how to thank you—"
"Don't thank me," Ginny said, casually tucking the dozen-odd genuine Krum signatures deeper into her robe pocket. "It was actually Lavender who got these. Look—she even wrote a personal blessing for a Weasley on the back. Do you like it?"
"I like it very much." Ron turned slightly red around the freckles. "But why would she go and do something like that?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Ginny said innocently. She steered her brother toward the spot in the common room where Lavender usually sat, pressed his shoulder until he sat down, and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Now—why do you think she sits here every single day? What is it she can see from this spot?"
"How should I know?" Ron said, bewildered. He looked out across the common room—the large, bright window, the empty round table beneath it. "There's just... the round table."
"Oh? Really? Just the round table?" Ginny whispered, barely suppressing a laugh. Then she got up and left.
"Wait—Ginny, what else? What kind of question is that?" Ron called after her, scratching his head in genuine confusion.
What else could it be, other than an ordinary round table with decent light? He stared at the very same table where he and Harry played chess and built card castles, none the wiser.
---
Later that evening, in the fading light of the fourth-floor corridor, the statue of the hump-backed, one-eyed witch was slowly opening its back.
A long leg in black trousers stepped out first, followed by a second. Their owner—a platinum-blonde-haired boy—carefully extended his arm to help a brown-haired girl out of the passage.
Hermione took his arm and looked around warily, like a cat emerging from somewhere it had no business being.
"I've already checked. No one's here," Draco said, amused by her guilty expression.
Professor McGonagall, I'm afraid your most well-behaved student is becoming quite proficient at rule-breaking. He thought with some satisfaction.
His assessment proved premature.
They had taken only a few steps when they came face to face with Professor Moody at the corner.
"Watch yourself—" The magical eye spun wildly in its socket. Its owner took one look at the boy who had instinctively stepped in front of the girl and said, in a tone of grudging surprise, "Draco Malfoy. What are you doing here?"
"Nothing. Just passing through," Draco said, recovering smoothly.
"Just passing through. And you, Miss Granger?" The magical eye swivelled past Draco and fixed on Hermione.
"Yes, Professor—Moody," she said, doing her best not to look as guilty as she felt, half-sheltered behind Draco's arm.
"Professor Moody, surely you have enough on your plate at the moment?" Draco said, with pointed emphasis, glancing at Sirius. "I thought you'd be rather busy these days."
Sirius was supposed to be tracking down members of the Order of the Phoenix—so what was he doing wandering the fourth floor?
Sirius—wearing Moody's face and trusting nothing about anyone—studied the pair with considerable scepticism. He glanced at the hump-backed witch statue nearby, then at the faint traces of dust on both their shoes, and finally waved a dismissive hand with an air of deliberate exasperation, letting them go.
"That pair is definitely up to no good," he thought idly, limping onward on Moody's wooden leg.
He knew perfectly well where the passage behind that statue led. He had known for over a decade.
Though, in fairness, Sirius felt he had no real grounds to judge. He himself spent approximately sixteen hours a day contemplating slipping through that very same passage, making his way to the Three Broomsticks, and ordering a proper glass of Firewhisky. The remaining eight hours were, obviously, spent sleeping.
Why hadn't that cunning old fox Dumbledore warned him that being a Hogwarts professor would be so utterly exhausting?
The teaching workload was far heavier than Sirius had imagined.
First, every year group had a double Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson each week—ninety minutes, an utterly inhuman length of time. What student, other than Hermione Granger, could maintain concentration for that long?
Second, as a responsible professor—however reluctant—he spent twice as much time preparing each lesson as actually teaching it. Merlin, he wasn't going to mislead his students.
Third, there were the lesson-plan forms. Half an hour, every single day, filling out forms in triplicate. What century was this? The bureaucratic rigidity of Hogwarts was genuinely staggering.
And then there were seven school years to cover. All things considered, Sirius spent approximately seven hours of every working day teaching or preparing lessons. Terrifying.
This explained everything, Sirius thought, with overwhelming resentment.
Why Professor McGonagall always wore a taut, humourless expression—clearly the natural state of the overworked professional.
Why Professor Flitwick had never seemed to grow any taller—probably chronically sleep-deprived from all those essays.
And look at Professor Binns, the History of Magic ghost who had died at his desk. Perhaps it wasn't old age at all. Perhaps it was overwork.
This even made Snape's greasy hair seem entirely reasonable. Potions lessons ran longer than Defense Against the Dark Arts, different houses had to be taught separately, and the grading alone must be extraordinary. No wonder Snape always looked so thoroughly miserable—this deduction filled Sirius with a petty, glorious sense of satisfaction.
The brief pleasure was followed, as usual, by a long stretch of anxiety.
Sirius had no time to waste. Beyond teaching, he was also searching for the Dark Lord's whereabouts, reaching out to former members of the Order of the Phoenix, keeping a close eye on Harry, and monitoring the movements of the Durmstrang ship on the Black Lake—Karkaroff, former Death Eater, remained a person of interest.
Most critically, he had to convincingly remain Alastor Moody at all times. Everything depended on it.
By comparison, transforming into the black dog beneath the Whomping Willow and teaching the French girl the rudiments of becoming an Animagus had turned out to be one of the more pleasant parts of his week.
That evening, the great black dog arrived a few minutes early.
He ran and frolicked in the moonlight, sending the ill-tempered Whomping Willow into a fury with his gleeful approach.
At eight o'clock, this was the scene that greeted Fleur Delacour as she arrived near the thrashing tree. She removed the Disillusionment Charm from herself, composed her expression into something suitably professional, and cleared her throat at the black dog.
The dog's ears pricked up. It turned around, took two easy strides, and sprang toward her with a momentum that would have sent most people stumbling backwards in alarm.
Most girls would have screamed. Fleur raised her chin slightly and watched him come, a calm half-smile on her lips, her silver hair perfectly still in the moonlight.
Rather bold, the black dog noted with approval—and in the instant before landing, it transformed smoothly into a man in black, landing steadily an arm's length away from her.
"Bravo." Fleur applauded three times, reserved and precise, a glint of genuine admiration in her eyes.
His command of the transformation—the timing, the distance, the elegance of the whole thing—was masterful.
"Your Transfiguration is quite impressive," she said, looking at him in the moonlight without artifice. "Very striking."
"Merci." Sirius smiled lazily, the carefree ease of the dog not quite gone from his face yet. Then, prompted by the unexpectedly sincere compliment, he returned it. "Your Sleeping Charm is not to be underestimated."
"Of course," Fleur said, with easy pride. She was mildly surprised he had noticed—genuinely noticed.
She had never considered herself inferior to anyone in terms of ability. The trouble was that the attention she received was almost universally directed at her appearance rather than at what she could actually do. It was the thing she minded most: being seen and not seen at the same time. No one likes to be treated as a decorative ornament—something beautiful and perfectly useless.
Her family had always looked at her differently. Madame Maxime was another who did. Professor Dumbledore, another still. And now, perhaps, Sirius Black.
She glanced at him sideways, her lips curving just slightly in the bright moonlight.
Sirius noticed the expression clearly. Then he noticed that they were standing in full view of the open grounds, and that in this moonlight, Hagrid—or any number of mischievous students creeping out after hours—could spot them without difficulty.
"We shouldn't linger here. Follow me." He turned toward the Forbidden Forest. "How are your preparations for the Mandrake leaf coming along? The full moon is getting closer."
"We've found some," Fleur said, falling into step beside him. She had already quietly explored the Hogwarts greenhouses—one of which had a generous patch of Mandrake.
"Good." Sirius raised an eyebrow, impressed. "A word of practical advice: before you actually attempt the transformation—well before the full moon—try holding a leaf in your mouth now and simply get used to the sensation. Beginners have a tendency to accidentally swallow it while eating or drinking, and then they have to start the entire process over again from the next full moon."
"That's a useful suggestion," Fleur said. "I'm already doing it, actually." She opened her mouth just enough to show him the Mandrake leaf resting on her tongue.
The tongue seemed quite dexterous. Sirius found his gaze wandering briefly before he pulled his attention back.
"Don't do that," he said. "The moment it leaves your mouth, even for an instant, the charm is broken. You have to keep it in."
"I know! I only wanted to show you." Fleur tucked the leaf back and gave him an impatient look. She was hardly going to make an elementary mistake like that.
"You really dislike being treated as though you don't know what you're doing, don't you?" Sirius observed.
"I dislike being treated as a pretty ornament who can't be trusted to think," Fleur said, with a light pursing of her lips.
He'd noticed that, had he? Elegant women weren't supposed to be so transparent.
Sirius said nothing, just smiled at her.
"The issue that concerns me most is the dew," she said, composing herself and changing the subject, her English a little clipped. "The book you lent me says it must be collected from a place that has seen neither sunlight nor human touch for at least seven days. I don't know this place well enough to find somewhere like that."
"That's not difficult. Grow a few potted Peace Lilies in a dark greenhouse and leave them entirely undisturbed. That's what I did." Sirius said it easily. "I can help you with the dew, if needed."
"Good. Let's do that." She smiled slightly, her footsteps light and quiet on the grass.
"I should also remind you about the Hawk Moth," Sirius said, glancing at her light tread and, without quite meaning to, matching it. "Their pupae emerge as adults between June and July. It's May now—you'll want to seize that window. If you miss it, the next opportunity is after October."
"I know," Fleur said, with a slight frown.
The requirements for the Animagus transformation were, honestly, exhausting. Every element was time-sensitive, temperamental, and difficult to obtain.
The idea had started as an impulsive one—a whim, born out of blackmail. But when she had watched Sirius transform beneath the willow tree, something in her had shifted. His form was not the clumsy, bestial thing she had vaguely expected. There was a kind of elegance to it—a joy in it—that she had not anticipated.
Once she had seen that, Fleur found she could no longer treat it as a passing curiosity. She had begun to want it properly. And wanting something properly, for her, meant confronting the difficulty honestly.
She had always known the Animagus was considered near-impossible. She had simply not understood, until now, quite what that meant in practice.
A quick, private glance at the man beside her. He had managed it. He had managed it very young, apparently. She swallowed every question she wanted to ask—and every trace of the admiration she didn't want him to see—and walked forward with her chin level.
Sirius noticed her quieter mood.
He was fairly good at noticing it in other people—a long familiarity with the feeling made it recognisable.
"Don't worry," he said, somewhat awkwardly, not entirely certain why he was bothering to reassure her. "You'll get there. I've seen someone with considerably less natural ability succeed with some guidance."
If she gave up and walked away, it would arguably make his life simpler. So why was he comforting her?
"How long did it take him?" Fleur asked, glancing up at him.
"Three years," Sirius said.
He watched her expression go carefully still.
"You have considerably more talent than he did," he added, with somewhat less grace than he'd intended. "You should manage it much faster."
The stillness in her expression shifted into something that looked like carefully arranged nonchalance. She lifted her chin. "Of course I will. I have no intention of giving up, and you have to see it through with me."
"Fine," Sirius said.
That French girl and her complete disregard for how her words sounded. She'd said it with such a straight face, too. His expression twitched slightly, and he shook his head.
---
They were deep in the Forbidden Forest, their conversation drifting without urgency through the oak groves, when Fleur stopped.
"Oh—" she breathed.
Sirius turned instinctively toward the sound—and found that something entirely unguarded had appeared on her face. A real smile, without any of her usual careful arrangement—one that softened all the pride in it into something simple and young.
A golden unicorn foal had stepped out between the trees, moving serenely through the dappled moonlight.
"What luck," she whispered, her head tilting with unconscious delight. "It's beautiful." She turned to look at him, still smiling.
Those light blue eyes were extraordinary in the moonlight. As pale and clear as sky, and as deep and still as the sea.
"She is quite beautiful," Sirius said, quietly.
Fleur Delacour, who was usually proud and prickly and restless, was suddenly none of those things. She was simply a girl looking at a unicorn foal with the uncomplicated pleasure of someone who had come across something wonderful.
Without quite realising it, the distance in her manner toward him had been fading. There were moments now that felt almost like easy friendship, rather than the guarded arrangement of blackmailer and blackmailed. She was, he thought, remarkably versatile. Sometimes aloof, sometimes imperious; sometimes blazing with the kind of warmth she showed in the tango—and now, this. A girl from the south of France sharing something that had surprised and delighted her.
He found, to his own mild confusion, that he didn't mind any of it.
A second unicorn appeared from between the trees—an adult, snow-white and graceful, clearly the foal's mother. She moved forward with unhurried steps and lowered her head to lick her foal gently; the foal stood quietly, accepting the affection without any fuss.
Sirius went unexpectedly still.
A moment ago, he would have said that seeing a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest was hardly worth writing home about. Now he found himself oddly moved by the simple tenderness of it—the mother and foal, the quiet world they inhabited together.
"They're so happy," Fleur murmured.
"Yes." He leaned slightly closer to her, watching through the leaves.
"I want to touch them," she said, in a small, hopeful voice.
"Her mother wouldn't allow it." Sirius said it quietly, and glanced at Fleur. His voice, for once, held no edge in it. "Let them be. It's a rare thing, seeing unicorns out in moonlight like this. Let them have their walk."
---
Not far away, in the oak grove, Colin Creevey was considerably less circumspect about his presence in the Forbidden Forest.
He was grinning from ear to ear, having found a perfectly clear line of sight, and was snapping photographs of the unicorn foal with cheerful efficiency.
"Good thing I put a Silencing Charm on the camera," he whispered happily to his brother Dennis, beside him.
Dennis nodded eagerly, scribbling in his small leather notebook by moonlight, faithfully recording every detail of what he was seeing.
The brothers were gathering material for a series of school newspaper features, including one with the working title: "Mysterious Species of the Forbidden Forest Revealed."
"Unicorns are definitely the highlight," Dennis whispered back. "We're so lucky to have got close enough."
"Wait—what's that—" Colin peered at one of the newly developed photographs. The angle was slightly off, which was probably why there appeared to be two shadowy figures in the background, behind the unicorns.
"Who are those?" The shapes gradually resolved into two vague, unmistakably human silhouettes.
The light was terrible. Colin pressed his nose to the photograph and still couldn't make them out clearly.
He gave up and simply craned his neck to look directly into the bushes in that direction. The place was already empty and still.
"Colin, shh—keep your voice down, you'll frighten the unicorns—" Dennis whispered.
"Dennis, stop shushing me, we need to go," Colin said, in a distinctly trembling voice. "I think I might have just accidentally photographed something like a ghost—"
"Really?" Dennis whispered, immediately excited. "Where? Can we put it in the next issue?"
"Absolutely not," Colin said firmly, clutching his camera. "The ghost feature is for Halloween."
---
In the Forbidden Forest, neither of them had any idea that the figures in the photograph were not, in fact, ghosts.
Sirius and Fleur stood quietly among the trees, watching the unicorns until the foal pressed close to its mother and the two of them moved away together through the moonlight, disappearing without a sound into the dark.
Fleur watched until she could no longer see them.
Then she looked at the empty space where they had been, and said nothing for a long while.
Sirius didn't say anything either.