Minnie's room at the Leaky Cauldron was dusty and small but not decrepit, with wide windows that looked down onto the courtyard bellow. Her family home remained vacant not too far from Diagon Alley, but Minnie couldn't stomach visiting the site of her parents' grim deaths. Anyway, her room at the Inn was cosy and comfortable, the innkeeper and his wife were very welcoming and often let her drink a little firewhiskey in the evenings even though she'd only just turned sixteen.
Yes, Minnie felt rather adult and proud of her independence as she shopped for new school robes. She'd just exited Madam Malkin's and was wondering whether she could be bothered buying her school books right now when she heard her birth name from behind.
'Good afternoon, Williamina.'
Not bothering to turn around she said, 'I don't respond to that name, it's Minnie or Future Queen of everyone - your choice.'
Sirius laughed and Minnie turned but caught a glimpse of Thomas striding along the opposite side of the alleyway. She hesitated but said, 'I have to go – see you later!' and without awaiting a response from Sirius, Minnie dashes over the road to Thomas and fell into step next to him.
Surprised by how brazen she felt, Minnie said with a sniff, 'fancy seeing you here.'
Minnie didn't know exactly how Thomas would respond to seeing her but it wasn't this: Thomas looked at her without a hint of recognition, without an expression on his face, before he turned to look ahead and said nothing at all. Minnie stopped walking and fell behind. She felt rather confused, but even more so when she watched him lift his wand in a mechanical movement that reminded her of a puppet on a string.
'Confringo!' Thomas yelled in a voice barely his own as he pointed his wand at the second-hand bookstore near where Minnie stood, the one they had spent whole days together flirting last summer and a detached Minnie watched the whole building blow outwards.
Minnie felt like she'd been kicked in the chest. She couldn't see for all the dust and smoke. She couldn't breathe. Her ears were ringing. She was vaguely aware she was curled on her side.
'Minnie!' It sounded as though it was being said from a great distance, but Sirius was right there beside her. 'Are you okay? Are you hurt?'
She stared back, eyes wild, but all Minnie could think about was all the destroyed books, burned and wasted, their ashes raining down on them.
With surprising strength hidden in his lithe form, Sirius pulls her to her feet. Through the blur of her thoughts, Minnie mumbled, 'the Leaky Cauldron, that's where I'm staying – the Leaky Cauldron.' With shaking hands Minnie wipes the sweat off her forehead and was a little unsettled when her sleeve comes back sodden with blood.
Tom was waiting for them by the back entrance to the pub. He let them inside and then locked the doors and drew the blinds.
'Minnie! Lass, are you alright?! What happened? I felt it before I heard it – was it one of those Death Eaters?' Minnie stared back mutely.
'Tom, I'm going to need a Calming Draught and Essence of Murtlap - do you have them?' Sirius commanded and Minnie felt like giggling at the sight of seeing him so serious.
'Yes, of course, yes, here somewhere, ah! I know!' As Tom ran to find the necessary potions, Sirius helped Minnie into a padded armchair in the corner of the pub. When Tom returned with the potions, Sirius suggested he return to Diagon Alley to search for other victims who may need help. 'Yes, yes, the wife is at the ministry today, thankfully, but I'll check.' Tom said, very much looking like he didn't want to leave the safety of the bar.
Minnie watched Sirius move behind the bar. He came back with a bowl of warm water and a cloth, and two glasses of firewhiskey, each poured with a generous measure. He poured the Murtlap into the bowl of water and the calming draught into the glass of firewhiskey he handed Minnie, 'drink up.' Minnie sipped the amber fluid and marvelled as her hands stopped shaking and her almost hysterical breathing eased.
Minnie sat silently and watchful and Sirius downed his glass in one and set to work. He dabbed the warm damp cloth at the cuts on her arms with long, capable fingers. Pianist's fingers, she thought and so asked, 'do you play the piano?' without comprehending how out of the blue the question sounded to anyone not following her thoughts.
Sirius' eyes flicked to hers and away again. 'I can. Mother made me learn although playing never much interested me.' Minnie liked the way his right cheek had a dimple but not his left. She liked to watch the bow of his lips as he talked, the slight indentation of his fuller upper lip almost a natural pout. She realised he was waiting for her to say something.
Minnie cleared her throat but it still came out a raspy 'what?'
Sirius repeated with forced casualness, 'the man who blasted the book shop, did you know him?'
Minnie thought she did know Thomas, or had she been too infatuated to notice the red flags last summer? Was he just another Death Eater?
'He looked like he'd been Imperiused,' Sirius informed her.
'How could you tell?'
'The blanket expression he had when he looked at you.'
'You noticed that?'
He nodded slowly.
Sirius rinsed the cloth out in the bowl, the water was tainted pink with blood but he didn't seem to mind. He pulled Minnie's dark hair back to get to the cuts on her temple before wiping away the streaked blood down the side of her cheek and neck.
'You ran away from home so you wouldn't be forced to marry me, right?' The words were out before she could stop herself. She sat tight, wishing she could snatch those words from out of the air between them and pop them back in her mouth.
'Honestly?' Sirius' mouth twisted as he looked at her frankly, 'it was part of a larger problem I had at home - I had no freedom of choice in my Mother's house, no elbow-room to live my life any other way than the one she saw fit.' He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead he returned his attention to cleaning her neck.
Minnie closed her eyes and thought that she rather liked the feel of his cool fingers on her jaw holding her steady. She thought that maybe if she opened her legs a little she could just about imagine him standing between them. Blushing at the thought (damn her pale skin!) Minnie noticed all at once that there was no movement in front of her and she opened her wide eyes to see Sirius staring at her and breathing deeply, one hand still holding her jaw – his thumb on her cheek. He moved his face forward a little, watching for any indication from her that he might have misjudged the moment, before closing the gap.
She felt the slightest graze of his lips on hers when the pub door banged open and in flew Mather wife of Tom in innkeeper. Sirius immediately and fluidly stepped back, making it look as natural as can be.
'Oh darlings! I've just heard what happened! Look at you, you look a fright! Here, I'll make you a hot cuppa, that'll sort you right out!'
Minnie looked more stunned than she had when she'd been caught in the attack but Sirius tossed her a large grin, 'Thanks, but no thanks Martha, although I may be back later for a bowl of your fantastic casserole later.'
Minnie watched absentmindedly as he charmed the older woman, wondering how he managed to do that – turn women of all ages into putty.
'You are a good lad, Mister Black, looking after little Minnie like that.' Martha chatted away as Sirius stood in the doorway about to leave, the corner of his mouth twitching.
As soon as Martha turned her back, Sirius, with the sleeves of his shirt still rolled to his elbows and his hands in his pockets, threw Minnie a small smile and then left.
Sirius thought he knew what he wanted inside and out, but that day he had surprised himself. He had once felt distaste and contempt towards the girl handpicked by his Mother to be his betrothed. He felt her to be an extension of his Mother's vice-like grip on his early years, an attempt to pass him along from one overbearing, controlling woman to another.
But throughout their 5th year together, Sirius started to suspect he had been mistaken about Minnie and Sirius did not like to be wrong. Her warmth and cheekiness, the 'stick it to 'em' nature of her pure-blooded family and the value she placed in her friendships, all reminded him of qualities he appreciated in his best mate, James.
So he watched Minnie from a distance, looking for any aspect of her character that would prove his early opinion to be the correct one. But instead of finding an ambiguous individual, he found himself drawn to Minnie and the more he tried to shake her out of his head, the more adhered she became. Unsettled by his territorial, almost obsessive thoughts and the actions that followed the day he near-about kissed her, Sirius decided to fix it the only way he knew how, by seeking the comfort of a different female.
Not that Minnie knew any of this, of course. She wanted to hang around Diagon Alley (and potentially bump into Sirius again) but she had misgivings about staying in London following the attack. Call it good fortune or call it a fluke, but if she'd stayed at the Inn she'd have witnessed Sirius with his arm casually swung over the shoulders of Isla Reid, 5th year seeker of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as they strolled Diagon Alley and hung out at the Leaky Cauldron.
She also wouldn't know that he, already bored and disinterested after just a few short weeks of dating, tried to curb the desire to get wildly drunk every time Isla gazed up at him. She, smug and tittering, had already presented him to her parents like a shiny Quidditch cup or a parchment of perfect OWL marks.
Instead, however, Minnie spent the rest of her summer at her cousin's townhouse in Prague, photographing everyday wizarding life in Czechoslovakia. Such joy did Minnie get from walking the streets of an unknown city with her eye to the camera's viewfinder that she thought for the first time she might have an inkling of what she wanted to do with her life.
It was midway through her second week in Prague, as she spent a comfortable afternoon absorbed in using developing solution to animate her photographs, that she received a letter from an unknown owl. Her mind immediately flew to exam results, but she felt before she knew for sure, that the letter was from her brother, Charlie.
Minnie
I hear from Professor McGonagall that you're doing well this year, despite all that's happened. I'm am fine – safe – and as soon as I can return, I will. I'll be in touch - best of luck with your OWL results!
– Love Charlie.
And just like Charlie had awakened the exam gods, Minnie looked up to see another owl with an official scroll tidily wrapped around its claw.
With a sigh of relief, Minnie noted that her favourite core subjects such as Astronomy, Herbology, and Transfiguration had netted her Es and she even had an Outstanding in Charms. Like she suspected, she'd failed Defence with a measly Poor.
Minnie's first errand when back in London was to provide a witness statement for the attack on Diagon Alley. She found just venturing into the Ministry of Magic a very intimidating experience, but that was nothing compared to sitting in the Auror office, surrounded by menacing photos of convicts and Death Eaters.
The Auror in charge of questioning her was a rather young and nervous looking Hogwarts graduate. When she gave him her account, he confirmed what had Sirius said, that other accounts confirmed Thomas to be Imperiused and would be released later in the week.
Minnie was happy to see Thomas free, but she felt her time with him had come to an end, perhaps unfairly so, as the events that unfolded were not his fault. Minnie knew the reason he had stopped owling her was most likely due the Imperius Curse that he'd been controlled with and she wondered morbidly, of the other actions he was forced to do.
All these distractions were healthier for Minnie than she knew at the time. She had felt intoxicated after her almost kiss with Sirius and she was about to find things with him were quite different to how she left them.
