He first noticed her because of her hair, an unnatural shade of something between red and purple. Aubergine. His mind supplied the color, though he wasn't sure where the unexpected vocabulary had come from. Sirius couldn't say he spent a lot of time reading to beef up his vocabulary — he didn't hate books, but the most he usually read was the Daily Prophet or maybe a magazine on Quidditch or wizarding vehicles now and then — or that he was an expert in women's hair colors either. Her hair was long, reaching her lower back and in one of those fishtail-type braids, though it was starting to come apart a little with strands loose here and there, and several strands framing her face on either side.

Her complexion was slightly - very slightly - bronze on top of would-be pale skin, as if she'd recently spent the day at the beach and the sun had layered her skin perfectly. Her fingers were long and graceful, curved loosely around her mug of steaming coffee which she was drinking black.

He couldn't help but respect a woman who drank coffee black. Sirius had always loved coffee. A lot. A hot cup was one of the first things he'd done once he was a "free" man. Even now, a fancy wizarding-type espresso machine graced the counter of 12 Grimmauld place.

Her right elbow rested casually on the table, and that hand reached backward, resting on the back of her neck, twisting the loose strands of hair at the nape of her neck around her fingers repeatedly. He could only get a glimpse of her facial features from his position, especially because the coffee shop was a little dark anyway. It was a muggle one, but that didn't mean that the strong cup of java in front of him was any less delicious or potent — coffee was one thing muggles knew how to get right too. Besides, it wasn't like they could have met at a wizard coffee shop. Muggle London was the only place Sirius ever got to go anyway. Otherwise, he was confined to 12 Grimmauld place — for his own safety. He gritted his teeth and decided not to think about it. At least now that the 'scare of Sirius Black' had been over for nearly three years, cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, he didn't look so alarming or odd that muggle London would notice him as anything of particular interest, so there he could go occasionally when he started to feel like a caged up animal.

He took another deep drink of Kona before looking back at the girl and scrutinizing what he could see of her facial features between her profile and the dim lighting. She had a long nose, perfectly straight with a tasteful piercing in the side facing him. She wore a tiny, green gem of some sort in it. He couldn't see if she wore earrings or had ear piercings because the loose strands of her hair were in the way. In front of her, she had one of those typically girly magazines Cosmopolitan. She was reading an article about makeup for summer. Personally, Sirius didn't think she needed the tips of either muggle or wizarding magazines about makeup. She had what looked to be naturally medium thickness eyebrows, chiseled into the perfect shape above her eyes, which were lined with the perfect amount of eyeliner and mascara, the lids brushed with a light coat of sea-green sparkly eyeshadow which matched the stud in her nose. Her lips sparkled very slightly with a lip gloss only a few shades more strawberry wine than natural lips. That was it. She knew how to rock the minimal makeup look, obviously.

He was having a hard time deciding if this was indeed the girl he was supposed to meet or not. That was the one problem with meeting people in muggle London. She could just as easily be some intriguing looking muggle girl as she could be a witch. Even her clothes told him nothing — short shorts in navy, just long enough to be tasteful and just short enough to draw attention to her long, lithe legs. Her legs were muscled, he noticed. She must work out because her body was the athletic type. He grimaced, thinking about that.

When he'd first got out of Azkaban, his skin had been ashen and sallow; his muscles had been near atrophied from never getting to come out of his cell, even for the briefest moment. He'd heard even muggle prisoners at least got a couple of daily walks. Then again, what could one expect from dementors? Certainly, they weren't the sort of prison guards to let you go for a walk. There hadn't even been a place to walk. Azkaban was on a cliff out in the middle of the sea. There was only so much working out when you lived over a decade in a cell not much larger than three paces wide and three paces long. His athletic build had certainly suffered.

Back in his Hogwarts days and after when he'd been working for the Order during the first wizarding war, he knew his body had been a thing of beauty to behold. Did that count as cocky if it was true? He hadn't been sure and didn't care much. He'd spent a lot of his time working out back then. James bought an expensive weight set they shared. James always had been rather tactful about the fact that Sirius had come from money, grown up in a mansion with a house elf and had everything he ever wanted, and that it had been a hard transition to wind up penniless after his mother had burnt him off the tapestry. It wasn't that he'd wanted their filthy money anyway, but the transition from having endless pocket money to really having to scrimp was definitely an adjustment, and James had always done his best to help out. Thankfully, even though he had no idea what had become of the weight set - probably went up in flames with the destruction of James and Lily's home — He swallowed hard and willed his mind away from the black thoughts — he found his own ways to work out and had gotten at least part of his musculature back. His skin tone had improved. Only his eyes really showed what he had been through. Other people told him they had a haunted, dead kind of look that never went away.

No matter what, he had always admired girls with a nice body. Back in school his type had definitely been the female Quidditch players. Of course it was usually hands off if there were any birds on the Gryffindor team because James wanted his team focused. Slytherin was out. Way out. Ravenclaw — and rarely Hufflepuff due to the house's dedication to hard work — sometimes had had his type though. His tastes hadn't changed with an added almost two decades, and this girl was definitely reminding him of that. Her short shorts fell to just above strong but slender thighs. Her legs were stretched out in front of her. She had scarred up knees and a couple scars on her ankle as well. He liked that. There was something about absolute perfection that bothered him — ever since he'd been a kid and his family pushed that on him. And so he'd adopted a style of liking "almost" perfect. There were certain prejudices from being raised in the Black Household that would never leave him. Things like loving expensive clothes, fast brooms, and knowing he could have all the beautiful girls for a shag — as long as it wasn't as perfect as things had to be at home. That mentality had changed some after his time in Azkaban… but deep down it was still there, still part of him. Probably always would be.

He went back to studying the girl for any clues at all. She was wearing socks and trainers - bright in color but nondescript. Just like her jean shorts, they could be muggle or wizarding design. Back when Sirius had been at school, more people had started to take liberties of using some pieces of muggle fashion and figuring out how nice they were — blue jeans, for example. Ever since then, there had never ceased to be a numerous amount of wizarding clothing labels producing muggle-type clothing ("But better" was often in the tagline). His mother's portrait always shrieked when he wore clothes from said labels into the house.

On top the bird was wearing a t-shirt of some sort. It was a dark purple color with writing along the front he was just too far away from her to make out. Damn it. That was all he could tell about the t-shirt because she was wearing a hoodie over the top. The epitome of popularity right now it seemed like, was hoodies paired with shorts. Sirius didn't exactly understand why one would wear summer clothes on the bottom but what was meant to be a winter piece on the top, but hey if it floated her boat. The hoodie wasn't all that helpful either, though. It was black and made of some sort of slightly shiny fabric with two vertical purple stripes down the sleeves- the type of hoodie runners wore that breathed easily. There was absolutely nothing to distinguish her from any of the muggles coming in and out of the coffee shop except for the fact that it was pretty late and the shop wasn't as busy as it had been earlier — he'd come early to stake the place out and because any chance to get out of the house… and because she had arrived there exactly at the stroke of 11 pm, which was the time he was supposed to meet his contact.

Sirius sighed. He was going to have no choice but to go talk to her and try to weed out whether she was the one he was looking for.