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

Summary: When Kate Lawrence adopts a strangely intelligent, grim-like dog, she gets a little more than she bargained for.

Author's Note: Why is it that every time I set out to write a cute little romantic, light story, I end up with some sort of plot that I didn't expect? Proof that stories write themselves, and as a writer, we are only instruments of the crazy ideas we've got floating in our heads. Posting for this is still a little sporadic, due to lack of time to sit down and write, but I promise part three will come soon! Hope everyone had a great weekend! Thanks for reading!

Two

Home was an old two story farmhouse in the English countryside that Kate had inherited from her mother upon her passing the year before. It was quaint and cozy, surrounded by fields, a forest and wildflowers. The house sat near a pond, and was an off-white color, flanked by gardens filled with flowers and potion ingredients.

Ozzie had reacted surprisingly well to traveling via floo, and for the first time since Kate's hasty adoption, he was acting like a real dog, sniffing almost everything both outside the house and in. Kate watched, amused, following her new dog as he searched the bedrooms upstairs, the living room, the formal dining room, (which had been transformed into a study), the kitchen, pantry and the root cellar (which doubled as a potion's lab), before he finally gave up, and curled up on the couch, resting his head against a pillow.

"My mum was a muggle," Kate explained as she plopped down on the sofa next to him, a cup of tea in her hands and a bag filled with work in the other. Part of her felt insane for explaining such a thing to her new dog, but then again, you were supposed to talk to animals to get them accustomed to your voice, weren't you?

"She'd have gone mental if she'd seen what I've done with her house after she died last year, a coronary." She shot a glance to the study and the door that led to the potions lab. "Though, it's my house now I reckon." She shot her dog a smile and cradled her tea between two hands. "And yours too." She added. "Though, you've certainly made yourself at home, haven't you?"

Ozzie lifted his head with a huff, and stood on the couch, crossing to the other side to flop down next to Kate and rest his head on her lap. He raised his eyebrows to her innocently, as if to ask better?

"Cheeky blighter," Kate laughed, scratching him behind the ears, "You're just a big love, aren't you?" She set her reading aside, focusing on her new dog. "Don't worry," She added, studying scars beneath his fur. "I won't tell anyone."

Ozzie looked amused, but his tail wagged ever so slightly. He liked the attention; she couldn't blame him after spending the last few months locked up. She continued to rub behind his ears, and he shut his eyes in contentment, earning a grin from his new mistress. "I don't know why you haven't been adopted already, love," She murmured to him, thoughtfully, "I reckon that anyone'd be lucky to have you."

Ozzie's eyes opened and he shot Kate a quizzical look, earning another laugh from the girl at the dog's expressions. "Oh well, I guess I'm the lucky one," She told him pointedly, "So long as I don't keel over dead after having to see a grim every day," she teased, earning an offended yip in response.

.

Unspeakable Luis Oswin was in trouble, or he would be, once the boss found out what he'd done, and, at this point, it was only a matter of time. It hadn't seemed like a big deal when it had happened, months ago; he'd only skived off work on a day that, then, had absolutely no significance.

Generally, monitoring the Veil in the Death room was a boring, though unsettling, job. They'd all made their rounds doing it, and he'd drawn extra duties in a late night poker game with some co-workers, which he'd been too plied with alcohol to remember much of. But there was something unnerving about sitting in the strange stadium like room, late at night, with only the veil for company. People heard things; people saw things; and Luis, for one, found it rather terrifying.

Despite hearing voices, seeing specters and feeling like he was being watched at all times, nothing of significance had ever happened on one of Luis's shifts. There was several hours of less sleep, (merlin forbid you actually fell asleep on your shift- the dreams were too unnatural), but nothing tangible ever happened. And after a week of these shifts wreaking havoc on his subconscious, Luis had left early on that Thursday.

He knew that he'd made a mistake the next day, when his boss had called him into his office. "Oswin, what the hell happened on your shift last night?" Head Unspeakable Drew was a terrifying man, large, stoic and keen to pick favorites. Luis had never been one of his favorites.

"W-what do you mean, sir?" Luis asked, his voice coming out as a terrified squeak instead of its usual timbre.

"You mean to tell me, that you noticed nothing out of the ordinary, no increased veil activity, nothing?" Drew questioned in the threatening tone that he favored.

"N-no sir," Luis stumbled on his answer, eyes widening. "D-did something happen?"

"Weekly diagnosis spells report something exiting the veil last night," Drew huffed. "Something that was certainly not supposed to exit the veil," He scowled. "You mean to tell me that you saw nothing?"

Luis had made the split decision to lie. It would, in this case, certainly save his job, and he needed the money if he ever wanted to propose to his long time paramour, Mary. By his reckoning, Mary, who was far out of his league to begin with, wouldn't stay with him had he no viable source of income. Certainly, the worst that could happen was that he would be sacked if anyone ever found out (hopefully years down the line). Luis was far from the smartest bloke in any room, but he wasn't a complete idiot.

So instead, he answered, "No sir."

That had been months ago. He'd managed to avoid his bosses' scrutiny, even scathe through without punishment, though his boss thought him even more of an idiot, if possible. But Luis couldn't shake the horrible feeling that still caught him off guard. Who or what had come out of the veil?

He tried to push it out of his mind to the best of his ability, and only ever really thought about it on the increasingly unsettling night shifts that he spent on duty in the chamber. Nights, like this one.

He'd kissed Mary (his new fiancée) goodnight, and headed off to work, clutching his tuna sandwich and apple to his chest. He reluctantly took a seat in his customary spot in the death chamber, contemplating the name, and the history of executing wizards and witches by pushing them through the veil, before Azkaban had been built. It still amazed him, that after hundreds of years of study, they didn't know exactly where the veil went.

They'd had numerous expeditions through the curtain over the centuries, attaching ropes and chains and tethering spells to the brave souls that ventured through. The ropes came back frayed, the spells had snapped, and no one of them had ever returned.

That was true, as far as he knew, until that night several months ago, and then again, tonight.

He thought he was imagining things at first, as he munched on his apple and looked at his tuna sandwich forlornly, (a new diet Mary had insisted on for their upcoming nuptials). The steady stream of whispers that was ever present around the veil grew louder and louder, until they were a dull roar, filling every corner of the room, and growing louder still.

The breeze, the one that blew the curtain of the veil uncannily as it was, had become fearsome, ripping the curtain in an increasingly violent tempest, and sending a chilling wind through though the room. Luis clutched onto his chair, wide eyed, as he went for his wand, the breeze ruffling his hair and robes and sending goosebumps down his spine.

But the veil was where his eyes settled. He should run, call for help, scream a spell over the roar of wind and voices, he should do something, anything, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the veil. A frantic sort of panic cropped up in him, and he found himself breathing heavily. The runes, carved into the marble archway were glowing an odd blue color, something he'd never seen before. And the light coming from the veil itself as growing as well, white light increasing at such intensity that he was blinded suddenly, but he still couldn't force himself to look away.

It registered somewhere in him that he was trapped, rooted to the spot, blinded and deafened by the roar, shivering in the wind and gasping for air. The sensations were so overwhelming that he couldn't even form a thought, until, just as suddenly as they'd began, the wind, the noise and the light stopped.

It took Luis a shaky minute to recover. He blinked several times to readjust his eyes to the dim lighting of the veil, to stop his head from spinning. And it took him another several minutes to register what he was seeing. A girl, woman, with dark hair and eyes was standing in front of the veil, naked, and unsettlingly pale.

"Did we make it?" She asked in a rough voice, eyes flitting around the room wildly and settling on Luis, and then, without warning, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed.

.

It was no great secret to anyone that knew her that Kate was a collector of oddities. It had been the venue for many arguments with her ex-husband, who told her that she had far too much 'junk.' She'd taken offense to the sentiment.

Her shelves were riddled with bits and bobbles she'd found, interesting shells, rocks, corals and leaves that she'd discovered on her numerous weekly hikes. She had ball jars filled with feathers, glass vials filled with sand, and this was not mentioning her book collection. She had not one but two ancient copies of the voynich manuscript; she had ancient herbology, alchemy and medicinal books. She had lunar charts and maps, and shelves filled with dusty leather-bound tomes.

So it didn't come as much of a surprise to anyone that her new dog became just another one of these oddities.

Kate had always considered herself to be a dog person. She'd had two dogs and a krup growing up, and had missed them horribly when she'd been at Hogwarts. But of all the dogs she'd ever had the pleasure of knowing, Ozzie was by far, the strangest.

He didn't act like a dog. Not a normal one anyone anyway. He was neat and quiet, and was prone to sour moods where he'd pace or wander aimlessly. He refused to sleep in Kate's bed with her, and left the room when she showered or changed. Most concerning, he wouldn't eat any of the dog food that Kate had bought for him.

It had taken Kate's coaxing cooked chicken from the stir-fry she'd been making one night to finally get him to eat anything and the next day, she'd gone to a bookshop and gotten an 'organic dog food cookbook.'

"I hope you know how much I spoil you," She'd told Ozzie as she poured through it, making a list of the things she'd need from the shop next visit. Ozzie had only cocked his head in response.

Furthermore, the way that he seemed to understand everything she was saying was downright creepy at times. He'd bark or yip in response to questions, nod his hid when she was talking aimlessly at him, and she could have sworn that she'd seen him wink at her once.

She'd caught him studying her when she was busy at work, or watching the telly, and looking deep in thought (or as in deep of thought as a dog could). On top of that, he never seemed to relax.

Ozzie was always tense, waiting for something to happen. He didn't seem to sleep much, and when he did, it was on the floor of her room, near the door, or huddled against the wall, and away from the dog bed, or her bed, which she'd invited him into nearly every night since adopting him.

Noises seemed to startle him, and though he never made any moves to attack or harm Katie (in fact seemed downright protective of her at times), he didn't overly care for any of Kate's male friends that had come to call. Kate was starting to worry, and had made two additional trips to the muggle bookstore to purchase books on dog behavior, which when Ozzie caught her reading, had barked in a way that had almost sounded like a laugh.

Kate had given up and shoved the books away, "It's all rubbish you know," She told her dog, settling down on the sofa next to him and scratching behind his ears. When she did so, was the only time she'd seen the dog relax, so she made a point to do so frequently. "The books are all about normal dogs and how they react to things," She explained, with an frown. "But anyone can see that you aren't a normal dog."

Ozzie raised his head and shot her a meaningful look, looking as though he was trying to convey something to her.

"You're right of course," She smiled at him, "You're much better than a normal dog."

Ozzie gave an annoyed huff, and laid his head back down.