"Shit!" Lily jerked aside just in time to stop the bag of flour hitting her on the head as it fell from the cupboard above her, which she had just opened.
Instead, it erupted all over the floor. Red-faced, she looked up at where Sirius was grinning at her from his seat by the table.
"Don't even say anything," she warned him, pulling out her wand and beginning to clean up the mess.
"I wasn't going to," he protested. "I didn't even open my mouth."
"And don't laugh either," she told him grumpily.
"I'm not laughing. But that's the third thing you've dropped in about as many minutes. I would never call you clumsy or anything, but are you sure you should be using that knife?"
"I thought you weren't going to say anything!" Her lips twitched despite themselves. "Anyway, it was your fault."
"My fault?" He looked indignant. "How was it my fault?"
"You're sitting there watching me, and I can't concentrate," she complained.
He raised his eyebrows, his grin growing.
"Oh, Lily. Am I making you nervous...?"
"Oh, shut up," she responded, wishing she hadn't said it.
Comments like that were all very well, except when they happened to be true. He hadn't really flirted with her since he'd been in her time, but now he was apparently bouncing back to something more normal. She didn't know whether she was happy about it or not. On the one hand, it was good to see him happier and more relaxed, but on the other, it made her distinctly hot under the collar when he grinned at her like that, and she was afraid it showed.
"Here." She held out a bowl of tomatoes in his direction. "Make yourself useful and chop these."
After a few moments in which neither of them said anything, she turned around again, and looked at his handiwork.
"Sirius, I asked you to chop them, not mangle them."
"Sorry," he said meekly, gazing at what could only be called tomato mush. "Does it really matter?"
She looked at it. "Well, I suppose not. Not really. Didn't you ever learn to chop vegetables?"
"No, the House Elf did it," he said.
"You had a House Elf in that flat?"
"Oh. No, not at the flat. I meant when I was a kid. After I got my own place, I s'pose I just didn't bother much about vegetables. And I generally cooked with magic anyway. Why don't you, by the way?"
She shrugged. "I like cooking the Muggle way. And it's easier to get things wrong using magic, anyway. Didn't you find that?"
He grinned. "Well, mostly people refused to eat what I cooked, but I'm not sure it'd have been any better without magic.."
She paused, suddenly noticing that they had both been using the past tense to talk of his efforts to cook by magic. And come to think of it, she hadn't seen him do any magic at all since he came to her time.
"Sirius, do you have a wand?" she asked.
He looked amused, but something told her that he wasn't really.
"No, for some reason they took it off me. Seemed to think I might try and murder a few people, or blast away a street of Muggles or something if they let me keep it."
"But you've been here for... well, nearly two weeks, not counting what happened at the weekend! You can go and get a new one, can't you? You can't do without a wand!"
She couldn't understand how he had gone so long without one. A wand was so necessary. And maybe she was misjudging him, but she'd have thought he'd have been even more dependent on magic than she was, given his level of isolation from the Muggle world for most of his life. She remembered him in 1980; he hadn't even known how to turn off an electric light.
He laughed harshly. "Lily, have a think about it. In this time, I've been dead for however many years. I haven't got anything here. No wand, and no money to buy one. I haven't got a bloody thing that's actually mine; even these clothes are really your brother's."
She bit her lip, feeling awful that she'd never thought of this. "Yes, but... well, you know, half Dad's money came from you. Well, maybe not half, but a good bit of it anyway. You left him a bloody house, for Merlin's sake!"
"Please stop it," he interrupted her. "D'you know how weird it is when you talk to me about things I haven't done yet, as if they were in the past? Anyway, it doesn't make any difference, does it? The money's your dad's, and the house has been sold. In 2028, Sirius Black owns nothing, not even a pair of shoes."
She said nothing for a moment, for it was clearly a touchy subject. Sirius was proud, and he wouldn't like living off other people's charity. However much she told him that half their money ought to be his, it would make no difference. The money was not his, and he wouldn't take it.
"You could get a job," she suggested at last.
He laughed again. "Yeah, right. Who'd employ me?"
Lily frowned as she thought about this. "Lots of people, I should think. You've got decent qualifications, haven't you? According to all the stories, you were one of the most talented wizards to come out of Hogwarts, and from what I've seen, it could well be true. You're a hell of a lot better than me, that's for sure."
He fiddled with the knife on the table. "That was before," he muttered.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, confused. "I mean, I know you haven't got a wand right now, but we can fix that. Don't tell me you won't even take a bit of a loan?"
"I didn't mean that." He made an attempt to smile, without meeting her eyes. "I didn't mean anything. It doesn't matter. Forget it."
She snatched the knife out of his hands, almost slicing his finger off as she did so, but she ignored his yelp of protest.
"Sirius. What the hell's the matter? What d'you mean 'that was before'? Are you trying to tell me you've lost your skill? Because I definitely don't believe that!"
She sat down in the chair opposite him, so that he could hardly avoid looking at her.
For perhaps the third time since she'd met him, his mask was down. The bravado was gone and he looked lost and a little frightened.
"No. Yes. I don't know, do I? I haven't done any magic for months. The last time I drew my wand was on Peter, and he beat me. Peter Pettigrew beat me. Right now, I don't feel as if I could do any sort of spell, even the most simple. I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't feel like I've got it in me any more."
"Sirius, I don't think you forget how to be a wizard," she said.
"Don't you?" He met her eyes unhappily. "No, I suppose not. I just feel like... well, like I was a different person before. That guy who could do all that stuff with his hands tied behind his back was a different guy. I'm not him anymore. And I can't be him; things are different now. But then I remember. There were always two of us, Lily. I mean, there were four of us, but me and James... We could do anything together. Anything. Now he's gone, and I can't remember how to do any of it anymore."
"Sirius..." She reached out a hand and touched his gently. "First thing tomorrow, we're going to get you a wand, and you're going to see. You don't forget."
For a moment, they were silent, then Sirius managed a smile.
"I really need to stop having some sort of break down every time I see you. I'm not really like this the whole time, I promise. Sometimes I'm almost starting to feel normal again. It's just... a lot to deal with."
Lily swallowed. A lot to deal with seemed like an understatement. She shouldn't be surprised that he still wasn't completely coping. She just wished she could help him. "Well, of all the people you could pick to have break downs on, I'm probably the worst. I'm hopeless at giving advice and saying the right thing."
"You're not, you know," he told her. "The good thing about you is that you don't go over the top with the sympathy, the way some people do. Most people would either say stupid, meaningless things that were suppose to make me feel better, or else they'd try and pretend they understood. You never waste time doing that, you're just there."
He broke off, and she felt her face warm up. Flirting was one thing, but she had even less idea how to deal with this.
"Well, I never feel like I'm being much help. But you, know, you're allowed to be emotional for a bit, after... well, after everything. Although I still think you need to start doing magic again."
As she continued with the cooking, her mind dwelt on the conversation. What he really needed was to start having fun again. It couldn't be good for him, staying here all the time, with nothing much to do except think about things. He was doing his best, but it wasn't natural - especially not for someone like Sirius.
She realised, feeling guilty, that they'd been treating him as if he was ill. She knew Mum had told James off over the drinking session last Friday, and not just because it had ended with them all back in the past. The last thing Sirius needed, she'd said, was to be encouraged to drown his sorrows in a firewhisky bottle. That was probably true. Unfortunately, most of what James did for fun involved alcohol of some sort, so Lily knew that he'd refrained from inviting Sirius out with him and his friends.
And she hadn't invited him out either, because she'd been spending too much time worrying over whether she liked him a bit too much. As for the others, Rose and Albus were too taken up with their respective careers to have much of a social life these days; Rose, like the rest of the Auror department, was busy until all hours with the latest Muggle attacks that had rocked the wizarding world (and she snatched the odd spare moments she had to see her boyfriend, which was quite understandable), and Al had exams coming up. Louis was part of James's crowd, and Molly tended to have a pretty quiet life. None of the other had even met Sirius yet.
They needed to do something about it, Lily decided. If he was going to stay here, they had to help him build a life here - a life that was at least approaching normal.
After dinner, she headed upstairs, closed her bedroom door firmly behind her, grabbed a jar of floo powder from the top of her chest of drawers, and, kneeling down on the floor, threw a handful into her empty fireplace. She disliked this method of communication, because it meant lying on the floor in an undignified way, with your head in the fireplace, but needs must.
She put her head into the fire, and saw the room she had requested to visit come into focus in front of her. She glanced round, and spotted the person she wanted to talk to.
"Hello!" she called.
James jumped, and looked round, scowling.
"Fucking hell, Lily. D'you mind not sticking your head into my house without an invitation?"
"Come off it." She rolled her eyes. "You're sitting on the sofa reading a Quidditch magazine. Hardly the most private thing. Although why are you sitting on the sofa reading a Quidditch magazine? It's Friday night! Is Hazel still in Wales?"
"She is. And I've got a match tomorrow," he told her. "So it's no alcohol and an early night. Which I thought you'd know; let your Quidditch following lapse a bit, have you?"
"A bit," she admitted. "I've had too much else to think about. Is it an England match, or with the Bears? Who are you playing? It's not a major match, is it?"
"No, it's England, but it's a friendly. We're at home against Lithuania. We ought to beat them."
"Right." She thought quickly. "Listen, Jamie. How easy would it be to get a few free tickets for it?"
He raised his eyebrows. "I've no idea. If you'd asked me a couple of weeks ago, I could have done it for sure, but it's tomorrow..."
"You're telling me they're sold out for a friendly against Lithuania?"
"I told you, I don't know. And I can't ask before tomorrow now. Why d'you want them, anyway? Who are you bringing?"
Rapidly, she poured out her thinking about Sirius, and some of the things he had said, leaving out the more personal bits.
"And I was going to say, why don't we do something tomorrow and take him along," she finished. "But if you're playing Quidditch, I thought maybe we could come and watch. I know he likes Quidditch, even if he isn't quite as fanatical as you, and it would be fun. It would get him out of the house, anyway."
"Yeah, I guess it probably is driving him a bit mad," James agreed thoughtfully. "But you said 'a bunch.' Who else were you thinking of inviting?"
"I don't know," she said. "Louis maybe, and Rose and Hugo, and Al if he wanted to come, but he's probably busy. And maybe Meri or someone. She's not that keen on Quidditch, but she'd probably be up for it. And Fred might be around..."
"Well, you can forget that," he said "You know our allowance for tickets is two. If you'd given me more notice, I might have been able to stretch it, but this late, you'll be lucky if you even get two. You'd be better off asking Mum for press passes."
Her face, which had fallen, brightened again. The Quidditch match seemed ideal, but she didn't particularly want it just to be her and Sirius. That would seem a little too much like asking him on a date.
"Good idea," she told him. "Nice one, Jamie. So you'll try and get a couple?"
"Yeah, why not? But you haven't forgotten everyone's having lunch at Grandma and Grandad's tomorrow, have you?"
"It is?" Lily tried to think whether she'd ever known that.
James rolled his eyes. "Well, there's a surprise. When do you ever remember appointments?"
Lily liked gatherings at the Burrow, but right at the moment, it was getting in the way of her plans. She frowned. "What do they want to have a family gathering now for? It isn't anyone's birthday or anything, is it?"
James shook his head. "Nope. They just invited everyone over. It's been arranged for ages. I'm going to be late, obviously, because of the match."
Lily grinned, distracted. "You mean you're going to opt out of the after-match drinks in order to come to Grandma and Grandad's?"
He shrugged. "Have you ever tried to tell Grandma you can't come to family lunch at the Burrow?"
"Well, listen," she went on, returning to the point at hand. "Why can't we be late too? Grandma's dead proud of you playing for England; she won't mind too much about us going to watch you play. Especially if we tell her it's for Sirius. She's all prepared to make a fuss of him anyway. We can come all come together after the match. Is it in the morning or the afternoon?"
"Starts at midday," James said. "Worst possible time for a match. I'll be starving by the time it finishes."
She ignored this. "Good. We're going wand-shopping in the morning, and then we'll come to the match. You see if you can get any tickets, and I'll ask Mum about press passes. Let me know by Communicator tomorrow, as early as you can, and I'll rally the troops."
"Okay," he agreed, "But I'm not promising anything."
Ginny, when Lily tackled her privately later that evening, was quite enthusiastic about the idea, although less keen on getting her daughter press passes. She reluctantly agreed, however, to provide one – only one though – on the condition that Lily wrote her a report on the match afterwards. Lily agreed to this, deciding that she would have plenty of time later to worry about the fact that she'd never written an article in her life.
"I can't give you more than one," Ginny said firmly. "We'd never send more than one reporter to a small match like that. It would just look ridiculous to have a whole crowd of you, and I don't particularly want it getting out that I hand out press passes to my children."
That meant that, with the two tickets James managed to acquire for her, she only had enough for three. That would have to do.
In the morning, she bounced downstairs, and put the idea to Sirius.
"A Quidditch match? Really? That'd be great…" His face changed as he realised something. "But I told you, I don't have any money."
"No problem," she said. "I've got three free ones. One's a press pass from Mum, which may be an issue if they try and make one of us sit in the Press Box. But I reckon we can wing it. The others came straight from the star player himself."
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "That would be your brother, right?"
She grinned. "Yes, but don't tell him I called him that. His head's big enough already."
He grinned back. "Well, if it's free, who am I to turn it down? Sounds fantastic. Who else is coming?"
"Louis," she said firmly.
She had asked her cousin by communicator that morning, before coming downstairs. It hadn't occurred to her that he might not be up yet, and apparently Louis, unlike James, had been out on Friday night; at any rate, he'd looked very much the worse for wear when she had dragged him out of bed. He had agreed however, a little groggily, that going to the match would be fun, provided that Grandma Weasley wasn't too annoyed at the upsetting of her plans.
Lily had been relieved. She'd been in a bit of a quandary about who to bring as the third, and had wanted to have it already arranged before talking to Sirius – otherwise, the whole 'looking-like-a-date' thing reared its head again. And she'd finally settled on Louis after dismissing a number of other options.
Her first instinct had been one of her own friends, because that was who she'd normally invite to something like this (if she didn't have a real date). But that would be awkward, when they didn't even know Sirius. Someone like Claire would only flirt with him, and Lily wasn't keen on that idea. And Meri - when Lily thought properly about it - was far too perceptive for her to want around when she was with Sirius. Molly didn't like Quidditch either, and Rose and Al were almost certainly busy.
Louis was the perfect solution; he was James's best friend, so it was natural for him to be there, and he already knew Sirius. The drawback was that he knew about her undecided feelings about Sirius, but she also trusted him to be discrete.
"But first," she added, "we're going to Diagon Alley to get you a new wand. And the match starts at twelve, so we'd better get a move on."