Disclaimer: All canon characters, scenery and plot references are the property of J.K. Rowling. I do not own or profit from this story in any way.
Rating: T for language
Author's Note: I've been writing fan fiction for quite some time, but the perfectionist in me refuses to post anything until the story is finished, or I've edited, re-edited and revised until I can't possibly continue. Part of my new year's resolutions was to a. be a little less of a perfectionist and b. to publish something. I'm using this as a crucial first step to get some of my own writing, fanfiction or not, out in the world.
Summary: Katherine Lawrence is recently divorced, recently orphaned, and currently going through some major restructuring in her life. Sirius Black, after emerging from the veil of death only months after the final battle, finds himself trapped in his anamagus form. They both get a little more than they bargained for.
One
Of all of the things that Katherine Lawrence thought that she'd be doing on a Friday afternoon, this certainly wasn't one of them. There was a part of her, an embarrassingly large part that wanted to yell, wanted to scream, wanted to curse her bad luck, or maybe just her choice in a best friend.
She knew that Clara was just trying to help. She had the best intentions, even if they were somewhat misguided. Clara had just been trying to drag Kate out of the self-induced and nearly lethargic funk that she'd been in since her divorce. And Kate was reluctant to admit that her friend's methods were working, despite the fact that they were somewhat unorthodox. Clara couldn't help it that her personality insisted that she quite literally drag her best friend into the carefully scheduled 'cheer up and get over that sorry sod' activities that, by their very nature, were overbearing at best.
They'd had a girl's day at the spa (which had included a very awkward couple's massage that assumed Clara and Kate lovers), they'd gone to an elvin vineyard for a wine tasting (she'd have preferred whiskey), had spent (wasted) an entire day watching sappy muggle movies and eating junk food, gone to a wizarding theater featuring the 'hit' new play wandless weekend, even gone camping, which would have been enjoyable had Clara not forgotten the tent.
The latest of Clara's schemes involved the girls volunteering at a muggle animal shelter, because in Clara's wise words, "You can't look at a puppy and not be happy."
And so, that was how Kate found herself surrounded by cats and dogs and animals of all varieties on a Friday. She could think of a hundred other things she'd prefer to be doing just now, say, going on a pub crawl, or curling up at home with a book and a glass of wine, or rather, anything else at all. Throwing herself into the Black Lake, for example, certainly seemed like a better option than standing on cold concrete flooring, looking at all the lost animals in need of a good home.
Bypassing the puppies, and the muggle children that seemed to follow them in scads, Kate had lost Clara somewhere around the kittens. Clara had decided even before they'd arrived that she would be adopting a cat, and now it was only a matter of which cat (or rather, witch cat).
Kate had lost interest in less than ten minutes, always considering herself to be more of a dog person anyway. This was undoubtedly how she found herself wandering through the kennels of the older dogs, aimlessly searching for something, even if she wasn't quite sure what.
She found it, or rather him, in a cage near the back of the shelter. The front few rows of kennels had been well traversed, filled with families and children, exuberant and eager dogs paying apt attention to anyone, everyone that happened by. The back rows held the older, less loved dogs, the dogs that she was drawn to, instinctively.
The very back cage held a black dog, curled up against the back wall of his crate. He was large, and standing, Kate imagined he'd come up to at least her hip, maybe even her stomach. He had slightly mangled shaggy black fur and gigantic paws. He seemed wholly unaffected by the noise level in the room, and only opened one steely grey eye as she knelt down in front of his cage.
"Oh you're gorgeous, aren't you?" Kate asked him warmly. One triangle ear perked slightly, and her gaze shifted to the sign on the front of his cage. "Ozzie, huh?" She read, "Suits you."
The dog lifted his head lazily, and cracked open the other grey eye. He sniffed the air slowly, and then, dropped his head back to the paper-thin blanket that separated him from cold cement.
"Do you know that in a lot of cultures and societies grims and black dogs are considered to be very bad luck?" She asked Ozzie gently, noting that the dog's eyes were still open. "A warning sign of bad things to come, they were. Quite often known for heralding death, or bad electrical storms." She remembered with a wry grin.
Ozzie's head perked up again, and his eyes leveled onto hers, interested, almost as if he could understand what she was saying, what she was referencing. He cocked his head to one side and seemed to look her over appraisingly.
"Smart boy, aren't you?" Kate sunk down to a sitting position in front of the cage, crossing her legs underneath her. "Seems like we've both got a bout of bad luck lately, hmm?"
Ozzie cocked his head to the other side, sniffing the air cautiously, and scanning her again. And then, without preamble, he stood, stretching out his back paws lazily before padding over to the edge of the cage and pressing a cold nose to the fingers that she'd threaded through the cage. Kate's eyes met Ozzie's in an odd and consuming staring contest. Just for a second, it was almost as though she'd seen into his soul, his old and tortured soul, and Kate felt her heart break for him. What happened to you, love?
"He likes ye," An older, black haired woman had come up behind them, and both Kate and Ozzie jumped. Kate spun around to study the woman. She was tall and lean and wearing an employee uniform, the name "Alice" posted on a cheerful nameplate on her chest. She had a leash in one hand and was staring intently at Kate, sitting in front of Ozzie's cage on the hard floor. "Never seen 'im take ta anyone like that before, ya ken?"
"What?" Kate blinked, shooting a look back to Ozzie, who looked, amusingly, just as confused as she did.
"Ah…bad case of black dog syndrome, that one 'as," The woman's Scottish lilt echoed oddly against the cement. "Ya know, the reckoning that black dogs are passed over for adoptin' in favor of the more…. eager ones, prettier ones." Alice's eyes darted back to Ozzie. "He's a smart one, Ozzie is, but he don't take to folk much," She continued. "He seems to like you well enough, though."
Kate shot another glance to Ozzie, and hid a smile at the strange woman's speech. She could have sworn that she saw a glint of amusement in the dog's eyes. "Well," Kate said slowly, "As it happens, I seem to like him well enough too," She said with a soft smile.
"Care to take 'im for a walk then?" Alice asked, looking between Kate and Ozzie, offering the girl the leash in her hand, "I'm afraid these old bones of mine aren't getting 'round the pond as quickly as they used to."
"Uh, Sure..." Kate took the leash from the woman's hand and frowned, worrying her bottom lip, "What do you say Ozzie?" Kate turned back to face the dog. "Fancy a walk with me?"
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she would later swear that Ozzie's eyes perked up at the idea. And she couldn't have imagined his tail wag.
They didn't go very far, or very fast, but, by the end of their walk, Kate was sold. Ozzie was a strange dog, that was for certain, and he acted more like a person than a dog, cautiously sniffing the air as they walked, as if he'd seen this all before, and he wasn't going to be bothered by racing around like a puppy. He kept a good pace with Kate, not yanking her arm off in eagerness as she half expected from a mutt his size. In fact, there was something downright magical about him.
"You don't act like a normal dog you know," She told him thoughtfully, as they stepped along the path. As if taking her words as a cue, Ozzie barked loudly at a duck and then turned back to her expectantly. Kate laughed.
"You're not part Crup or Cerberus are you?" She asked him, as the continued their leisurely stroll around the large pond that flanked one side of the compound. Ozzie gave a woof of derision at the comparison, but cocked his head to look her over curiously.
"I'm not exactly normal myself," She informed him conversationally, "I'm a witch, you see, and though I'm certain that doesn't mean a thing to you, it's defined pretty much my entire life." Ozzie's head came around to stare at her, grey eyes narrowing as she continued talking. "I'm only telling you this because….well I think I might like to adopt you, and I don't want you wigging out if I cast magic around you."
Ozzie stopped walking all together, frozen so immediately on the path that Kate ran into him and fell backwards onto her arse. "Bloody hell, warn a girl," She groaned, rubbing her back, "Trying to kill me already?"
The dog turned to face her, staring at her in his unnervingly intense way. He stood over her, and she cautiously reached up one hand to stroke his neck, to scratch near his ears. Somehow, she knew exactly what Ozzie seemed to be asking, as clearly as if he'd voiced it aloud. He was terrifyingly intelligent.
"I would like to adopt you Ozzie, if that'd be alright with you," She said carefully, looking up at the grim from where she was still sitting on the dirt path. "I didn't come here planning on adopting a dog, even a freakishly intelligent one, no matter if he's gorgeous." She laughed, brushing some of his shaggy fur from his face.
"I came with my mate Clara to…. Well… that's neither here nor there," She muttered, "But your sign said you've been in for over a year, and no one deserves that, you know? No one deserves to be locked away without a family for over a year." She shook her head, rambling on, but unable to stop herself. "Not to mention that the put down dogs that have been 'round for too long, and I'd never forgive myself if anything…." She shook her head at the thought.
Ozzie was still staring at her, eyes narrowed in on hers, but he'd sat back on his haunches, as Kate continued her blathering. "As it turns out Ozzie, I like you, weird and all," She said with a dry laugh. "And I won't pay any mind to the 'grim' nonsense, because I don't reckon my lucks going to get any worse. So maybe the two of us can make some good luck of our own? Be our own family?" She asked, "What do you say?"
Ozzie studied her thoughtfully for several seconds, looking at her as if determining whether or not to accept her offer, and suddenly Kate was nervous. Maybe her bad luck could get worse, and it'd somehow insanely came down to the culmination of whether or not this shockingly intelligent dog walked away. It was something she'd have laughed at, hysterically, a year ago, but now, it seemed important, damagingly so.
But before she'd even blinked, Ozzie set a cautious paw on her knee and then dropped his head, to lick her cheek softly, and Kate engulfed him in a hug.
It wasn't much, but it was a start, a new beginning for a new family. And somehow, to both Kate and Ozzie, it made a difference.
"You want to adopt….that?" Clara said skeptically, looking over the dog that her best friend had chosen with a scrunched up nose. She had a carrying case in one hand, and there was a stripped grey kitten peering warily through the bars.
"Yes," Kate stated baldly, scratching Ozzie behind his ears and tightening her hold on his collar. Ozzie sniffed Clara and her kitten cautiously, before looking back to Kate. If dogs were capable of raising their eyebrows, Kate was certain that Ozzie would have done. She shot her dog a knowing smirk before turning back to Clara.
"But Katie," Clara said with a frown, still looking skeptically at the dog, "That's pretty much a grim, don't you remember what Professor Trelawney said about Grims?" Clara had always had a soft spot for Divination, no matter the fact that Kate had thought it was ridiculous, or at very least, their former teacher was.
"And don't you remember what I've said about professor Trelawney and Divination?" Kate rolled her eyes. "Load of rubbish."
"But…Surely there's a cute puppy or a…." Clara tried again, looking over Ozzie disbelievingly.
"-No." Kate stated interrupting her friend. "I want him."
"Fine…. But he gives you mange or rabies, then don't come crying to me." Clara said with a shake of her head.
"Alright then, I wont," Kate laughed, scratching Ozzie behind the ears again. "Let's go home Ozzie."