The door slammed shut behind him as he stormed out of his house around midday. Honestly, all Walburga Black ever seemed to do was scream at her oldest son for no apparent reason. Soon her logic behind it would be that he exhaled and got germs into the air. But frankly, Sirius had enough and it was still only the second week of summer. Most days he would just walk out of the house and go to a park or something to avoid shouting back at his mother. It would be a great day when Sirius Black could finally leave 12 Grimmauld Place and never have to return.

Normally Sirius would go to the park that was only a few blocks away from Grimmauld Place but his growing irritation was making him think that he should be as far away from that wretched place as possible. After thinking about it for a while Sirius started to head off toward a park on the other side of London. He had a little bit of muggle money for occasions like this so he decided to take the subway. Oh if only his mother could see him now, sitting in an underground train, with muggles, and using muggle money to get there. Yes, that would have simply filled her shriveled up little heart with warm fuzzy feelings of pride. Not.

This park was a good deal smaller than the one that he normally went to, and not as well kept, but at least there was only a few people here which was a good change from the always crowded with kids park he always went to. There was an old lady feeding the pigeons, a girl with a giant dog and roller blades, two little boys and another girl were tossing a ball around. Five people and one dog, that wasn't too bad, it was a nice change from the billion screaming kids that he was normally surrounded by.

Sitting down underneath a tree Sirius looked idly as the pigeons pecked at the little old lady's feet and as the girl with the dog said something to the one with who was probably her brothers or something, laughed, and rolled away. He found himself looking at the girl with rollerblades as she crouched down slightly to say something to her dog, rub it behind the ears, and stand up straight. Then, thinking she must be crazy, she allowed the dog to charge around the park as she held on to its leash and let it pull her around at top speed. It was just an accident waiting to happen but she was laughing hard both times that she and the dog sped past him.

Before she could pass by him the third time though the girl let go of the huge Great Dane's leash but kept rolling around, still laughing and barely having to do any work because of the amount of speed she had gotten from letting the dog tow her around. No sooner had the dog been released he charged toward Sirius and skidded to a halt next to him and thumped his tail against the grass and started sniffing at Sirius's face.

"Hey, man," said Sirius, giving the dog a sort of half nod like he was talking to a person. "How's your day going?" The dog licked his face and covered half of it with saliva.

"No Tibbles, leave him alone!" called the girl before coming to a halt in front of them.

"Tibbles?" Sirius asked incredulously, whipping off the dog drool and looking at Tibbles. Honestly this dog was probably part bear and that was his name? Even Sirius in animagus form wasn't much bigger than the Great Dane sitting next to him.

"Yeah the name wasn't my choice, my sisters named him," the girl laughed as the dog came back over to her side where it was half of her height on all fours. "Hey wasn't bothering you, was he?"

"No I'm a dog person," Sirius told the girl as he stood up, mentally patting himself on the back for his little pun. The dog barked happily as she rubbed it behind the ears.

"Well that's good," said the girl, nodding approvingly before grinning again and holding out her hand. "Hi I'm Nicka Benbow." Sirius looked Nicka over. Everything about her screamed "muggle" from her rollerblades to her dog to the way she talked. But she was very pretty, with dark brown hair and bangs, almond shaped green eyes with dark lashes, and a somewhat thin nose. Both of those reasons were why Sirius automatically took he hand and introduced himself.


In the days that followed Sirius found himself going to this park more and more often, regardless of the distance, just to see Nicka after she had said that she went there just about every day. He found himself learning a lot about her. Her parents were divorced and both were remarried but still on relatively good terms, she had an older sister and a younger sister who were only one year apart in age from her. She had a 20 year old step-brother who lived with them at her mom and step-father's house and a ten year old half-sister and three year old half-brother a her father's house. She was indeed a muggle. The girl that Sirius had seen on his first time going to this park was her best friend Lucy Whitaker. Nicka was the same age as Sirius. She thought his first name was sort of weird sounding but she had been laughing when she told him this. Whenever Sirius would have to return home after spending the day at the park with Nicka he found himself wanting to go back right away.

One day, about a week and a half after he first met her, and had been seeing her at the park every day since, Nicka made Sirius go on the swings with her.

"I feel stupid," he grumbled as he sat down on the swing and didn't bother pushing himself.

"Well then push me," she insisted, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. He rolled his eyes at her but did what she said.

"Come on, isn't this fun?" she asked, laughing as he pushed her high into the air. Sirius had come to the conclusion that he loved Nicka's laugh, it was kind of a girlish giggle and on most girls he found it incredibly annoying but with Nicka it was just cute and pretty contagious.

"Oh I guess, if you really think so," he laughed. He kept pushing her for a few more minutes, even after they had reached the point when the chains on the swing set wouldn't let Nicka go any higher. At last Sirius caught the chain of Nicka's swing to stop her from moving anymore, she was still laughing.

"See I told you it would be fun," she told him, making a little side to side movement with her head. Sirius chuckled slightly and shook his head. "You sure you don't want to have a go at it?"

"Pretty sure. It's cute when a girl goes on the swings but when a guy does it it's just awkward," he laughed.

"D'aww, you think I'm cute," she teased.

"Not what I said, but yes," he admitted. Nicka bit her lip and looked down, blushing slightly. Alright, that was it. Sirius still couldn't believe that he had spent just about all day, every day, for ten days and not made a move. It made no sense especially considering that Nicka, as he was starting to think, was basically the greatest girl in the world.

With these thoughts in mind he tilted his head down and met Nicka's lips with his own and placed his hand in her hair. There was a moment when Nicka hesitated to kiss him but she melted into it before he could think anything of it. He mentally did a double fist pump before focusing on kissing the girl he was with. A moments later Nicka pulled away, gasping slightly.

"You don't need to chew my face off, I'm right here," she murmured, pressing her forehead against his. "Just take it easy, okay? Oh… and there are kids here." Both of their eyes drifted over to a few kids going down the slide nearby before the both burst out laughing.


"SIRIUS BLACK!" Walburga screeched as soon as Sirius closed the front door one evening after returning from a date with Nicka where he had spent the day at her house. Sirius sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

"Yes?" he called agitatedly. These people seemed to be bothering worse than usual as of late.

"COME HERE NOW!" his mother screamed again. Sighing once again Sirius made his way to the kitchen.

"No need to shout so loudly, the kitchen isn't ithat/i far away from the front door. What do you want?" he snapped. Both Orion and Walburga Black were rather pale faced and angry.

"What's this your brother says about a muggle," his father spat. Sirius raised an eyebrow at them like he had no idea what they were talking about and tried to remain calm.

"'Fraid you're going to be more specific than that. There's a lot of muggles in London." What he wasn't expecting was for his mother to slap him across the face.

"Don't be stupid, boy. The girl," she growled. Now his face was throbbing painfully, he was wondering how Regulus had somehow found out about Nicka, his temper was flaring up, and he was having a hard time thinking of a story to tell them.

"You are forbidden to see her," said Orion in a low voice. Yeah, Sirius thought sarcastically. Okay, like that's going to happen. "What could possess you to go amongst filth like that?"

"Oh, so it's my fault I fell in love, isn't it?" Sirius yelled, the rage that he had so far managed to suppress starting to flare up.

"You're a disgrace to the Black name," said Orion in the same low, threatening voice. Yeah, like he didn't already know that.

"Go to your room," snapped his mother.

"But-"

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" Angrily Sirius stood up, taking care to slam the chair on the ground and break a few valuables on his way back upstairs. He would need to have a chat with little brother Regulus.


The night he had argued with his parents about Nicka was the night Sirius finally decided that he had had enough of them and packed up his things and fled to the Potters' house. Now, two mornings after he had left 12 Grimmauld Place for what he decided was the last time Mr. Potter was frowning at the morning's Daily Prophet as James and Sirius trampled down the stairs. Mrs. Potter served the boys and her husband breakfast but stopped to look at the paper of Mr. Potter's shoulder.

"They're getting bolder," James's father said darkly.

"That's such a pity," said Mrs. Potter sadly, going to put a few more dishes away before sitting down with breakfast herself.

"What is?" asked James in confusion.

"A muggle girl dropped dead in London. She was home alone, there were signs of a break in, but the muggles couldn't find any reason for her death. Which means it was a killing curse," explained Mr. Potter. James held out his hand for the Prophet which his father handed to him.

Sirius looked over his best friend's shoulder to view the front page only to get a horrible sensation in the pit of his stomach as he looked at the all too familiar face on the front page of the photo as a girl laughed happily at him. Veronica Rose Benbow, 16, was found dead in her mother and step-father's home in London, England early this morning…. Sirius didn't want to read anymore for he felt that the more of the story he read the more difficult it would be for him to push it off as a mistake of some sorts. No, it wasn't possible.

"Mate, are you okay?" James asked, somewhat concerned as he looked at Sirius. No sound had escaped his lips at the sight of Nicka's picture on the front page but he had felt some of the blood drain out of his face.

"I met her a couple of times," he said coolly. "Nice girl. Didn't deserve to die."