A/N: Characters and world property of JK Rowling. No copyright infringement intended.

Of Blacks and Boarhounds

"Somehow Sinaka knew you would be safe here, and so here you were brought," he explained, still rubbing the dog's ears. He looked down at the giant head in his lap. "You did know, didn't you? You're a very good beast." Sinaka chuffed at him.

She smiled softly at his pronouncement. "He's just the best dog in the world," she agreed.

Chapter Six

June 28, 1992

Lulabelle awoke to the sun streaming through an unfamiliar window. For a moment she was confused as to where she was, until the events of the previous day came flooding through her mind. After explaining that Sinaka was not actually a Great Dane, but a magical creature called a Cŵn Annwn, Severus had noticed how exhausted she appeared to be. He insisted that they retire for the night, and promptly bundled her off to the spare room. With a sigh, Lulabelle rolled over in the narrow bed and looked at the dog. He was curled up on his bed, snoring loudly in the morning light. Smiling at him, she flopped back onto her back and stretched.

Getting out of the bed, she gathered fresh clothes and headed for the bathroom to complete her morning ablutions. Removing the necessary products from the toiletry bag she'd left in the bathroom the night before, Lulabelle took a quick shower. She did not want to use all of the hot water in case Severus hadn't showered yet, even though she could hear him puttering around downstairs. Once done, she dried off and wrapped a towel around her long hair, and another around her body. Pulling her hair dryer out of her bag, she searched for the outlet, found it, and simply stared. 'Damn,' she thought. 'I forgot there'd be different plugs.' Heaving a sigh, she opened the door and stuck her head out of the bathroom.

"Hey Lou?" she called down the hall. Silence. Huffing, she crept towards the staircase. "Lou?" she called again, louder this time.

"Yes?" he said from behind her.

Lulabelle whirled around, startled to hear him so close when she'd thought he was downstairs. "Ahh! Lou! Ya scared me!"

Severus couldn't speak for a moment. The sight of her, fresh from the shower, wearing only a towel, one of his towels, had rendered him temporarily mute. Finally, he managed to say, "You called?"

The hand not holding the hair dryer was clutched to her heart. "Oh yeah! Do ya have a hair dryer? Mine won't work with your outlet."

"Do I have a…" he trailed off, desperately keeping his eyes on her face, refusing to let them travel below her chin, no matter how badly he wanted them to do so. "No. I do not have a hair dryer. I just use a drying charm," he told her.

"Well, crud," she sighed.

"If you would be alright with me casting upon you, I could perform the charm for you," Severus hesitantly offered.

Lulabelle brightened. "Of course I'd be alright with that, Lou! Thank ya so very much! I just hate goin' 'round with wet hair," she said.

Slightly taken aback by her easy trust in him, he gestured for her to return to the bathroom. 'She must not understand the level of trust she is placing in me by allowing me to cast on her person,' he thought to himself. 'She just needsa way to dry her beautiful hair…' He cut himself off before allowing his mind to drift to any other of the beautiful aspects currently clad in only a small scrap of towel. He awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Er, right," Severus said. "You'll have to remove the towel. The one on top! I mean, the towel on your head. I didn't mean…" he broke off, reddening at his gaffe. Lulabelle laughed lightly at him.

"It's okay, Lou. I knew whatcha meant," she said, trying to ease his obvious embarrassment. "Just lemme brush my hair out first," she added, removing the towel from her hair.

"So," she said while brushing the long locks. "How does this work?"

"How does what work?"

"The dryin' charm. How does it work?"

Severus snorted as he leaned against the wall behind her and replied dryly, "It is a charm. It dries your hair. Or were you perhaps asking for the magical theory behind it?"

Lulabelle laughed as she worked out the final tangles. "I meant how does it dry your hair. Does it blow like a hair dryer? Or does it suck all the water out like a vacuum?"

He quirked a smile at her reflection in the mirror. "Neither. It vanishes the moisture."

"Huh," she said thoughtfully, smoothing hair product through the long strands. "Bet that does nothin' for volume."

Severus' eyes flicked to his own dark, limp locks in the mirror. "Quite."

"Well alrighty, then," she said as she flipped her hair over and bent at the waist. "Dry away!"

"What are you doing?" he asked in utter confusion.

Lulabelle flipped her hair back up and straightened her body to look him. "Ya said it was bad for volume; I'm just tryin' to get any lil' bit I can. Ya know, how like if ya dry your hair with a hair dryer upside down, it adds to the volume?"

"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, madam. But please, turn back over. We shall try it your way."

She did as Severus suggested, and he cast the drying charm on her hair. When she flipped back up, he could only stare at her silky black and purple tresses, now in long curls rather than the beachy waves of yesterday. He reached out as if to touch one of them, then pulled his hand back before making contact. Lulabelle missed seeing his movement as she gently fluffed her hair.

"Well, well," she said, inspecting her curls. "Not too bad at all. Imma need ya to teach me that charm when I get a wand, Lou. This'll save me so much time in the mornin's!" She turned to face Severus. "Are ya waitin' for your turn, or do I have time to finish up in here?"

Severus straightened. "Please, take your time. I generally shower in the evenings," he said, and left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. 'I generally shower in the evenings?' he thought to himself. 'Why would I say that? Of all the dunderheaded things to say…' His thoughts continued in this vein as he headed downstairs to set out the breakfast he had left early this morning to pick up from the local bakery. Shaking his head as if to clear it of negative thoughts, he turned his focus to brewing a pot of tea. 'Perhaps she prefers coffee in the mornings. She is American, after all. We really must get to the shops today.'

Just then, Severus heard a thundering sound coming from the stairs. 'Ah. The beast is awake.' He watched as Sinaka padded into the kitchen and sat down next to the chair holding his food bowl. The dog eyed him expectantly. Severus glanced around the kitchen for his bag of food.

"I am not sure where your mistress has stored your food. Would you like to go outside while I look for it, or would you prefer to wait?"

The dog rose to his feet and walked to the back door. "Very well," Severus said, moving to open the door for him. "Breakfast shall be served when you return."

Sinaka chuffed at him and leaned against his side for a moment before walking out the door. Severus turned back to the kitchen, and quickly found the food bag in the pantry. He filled both the food and water bowls, and returned them to the chairs they had been sat upon. Taking in this set-up with a critical eye, he looked about the kitchen for something he wouldn't miss. Eyes lighting upon an old, rarely used cutting board, Severus was just in the process of transfiguring it into a stand for the bowls when Lulabelle entered the room.

"Whatcha doin', Lou?" she asked.

"I am attempting to make something sturdier to hold your beast's bowls. A stand of some sort… There. That should do it," he said as he finished the process and admired the result for a second or two before placing the bowls on top of the stand and moving the chairs back to the table. When Severus turned to finally look at her, he sucked in a breath as he took in her appearance. She was wearing a soft white halter-style sundress made of eyelet lace, and had a pair of well-worn brown cowboy boots on her feet. "You look… lovely," he said feebly, inwardly cursing his tongue for its failure to work properly around the woman.

"Well aren't ya just the sweetest man, Lou," she exclaimed, reaching up to hug him around his neck. As he bent towards her to reciprocate, she kissed his cheek as well, smiling as he blushed. "Mama says ya should always pack at least one nice outfit, no matter where you're headed. Ya never know when ya might need it. Somehow I don't think this is what she had in mind, though…" Lulabelle trailed off a bit sadly, then shook her head. "In any case, I thought we might stop at a bank before headin' to the grocery store. I have a couple hundred dollars cash that I'll need to exchange for pounds before we can go shoppin'," she informed him.

"It's Saturday," Severus said rather gormlessly, mind still fuzzy from her compliment. Then in the same dazed tone, concentrating more on the tingling he felt on his cheek where she'd kissed him than the words coming out of his mouth, he added, "And why would you need money?"

Lulabelle gave him a quizzical look. "Because we're goin' shoppin'? And is it really Saturday? It was Monday when I left. June 27th, to be exact."

"Today is Saturday, June 28th. It seems you were transported to the same date, just not the same day of the week. And I will not have you paying for things I can easily provide. In any case, the banks are closed for the weekend. At least they are in Cokeworth. There may be a few in London that are open on Saturdays, but the foreign exchange is most definitely not." Severus stated, mind focused once more.

Exasperated, Lulabelle told him, "Lou. I can't let ya pay for everything. I might not have a lot of money right now, but I will be usin' what I do have to pay my own way."

Unwilling to concede the point, Severus raised his brow. "Have you checked the date on your notes? Would your currency even be accepted at a bank, or would they believe it a forgery?"

Narrowing her eyes, Lulabelle opened the purse she had slung over her shoulder, removed the bills from her wallet, and looked at them. "Damn," she said under her breath, then replaced them. With a sigh, she said, "Fine. Ya have a point. It's just that, you're lettin' us stay here and all…" She looked around the room as if searching for something, then added, "I just feel like I oughta be contributin', ya know?" Her shoulders sank in disappointment.

"Madam, you have contributed more than you know already. Think nothing of it," he tried to placate her. Suddenly, she brightened.

"I know! Ya should invest in the stock market! Microsoft and Apple do really well in the future. There. Now I won't feel so bad about ya payin' for stuff," she said with a wave of her hand, as if the matter was settled. Severus turned his head to hide his smile, and gestured to the table.

"Would you care for breakfast?" he asked, pulling out a chair for her.

"Oh, yes, thank ya," she replied, eyeing the open bakery box on the table that was filled with pastries. As they settled in to eat, Severus poured them both a cup of tea.

After a few minutes of silence broken only by the sounds of moving cutlery and their chewing, Severus spoke. "I thought, perhaps, that we could go to Diagon Alley before heading to the shop for food. You might enjoy seeing it, and we could get you a wand whilst we are there," he finished, still cursing inwardly at how awkward he sounded to his own ears when he spoke to her.

"Oh Lou, do ya mean it? We can go to Diagon Alley?" Lulabelle said excitedly, eyes wide and sparkling.

"Of course. We can go as soon as we have finished eating. If you would agree, I can show you around, and then we could take lunch there before coming back to get groceries here in Cokeworth. After that, maybe we could discuss the second book?"

"Well sure," she replied. "Or we could talk about it on the drive over if ya don't wanna wait."

Severus scoffed. "One does not drive to Diagon Alley, madam. One either floos or apparates. Besides, it would take hours to drive to London from here."

Lulabelle laughed at his tone. "Can we pick up a map while we're out, too? I know that Manchester and London are both in England, but I have no idea where in England they actually are. Or where anything is, really. There's no wi-fi yet, so none of the apps on my phone are workin'."

"I have no idea what you just said, but yes, we can get you a map."

Snickering at his expression, Lulabelle stood to get her purse from where she'd placed it on the counter. She sat back down and pulled her iPhone out of it. "Okay, time for a technology lesson. This," she said, holding up the object in question, "is a cellular phone. It's basically like a tiny, wireless computer that can do all sorts of things in addition to making phone calls."

"I've heard of computers before, but I've never used one," Severus admitted. "You said you can call people with it?"

"Yeah, but most people just text instead of callin' anymore. I only answer the phone if it's my folks."

Severus looked over the device in his hand. "How do you know if it is them calling or not?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose and said, "Sweet baby Jesus, I don't even know where to start. Okay. First, there's a thing called Caller I.D. It shows ya the name of the person callin' ya, or at least what number the call is comin' from. They have it for landlines, too." She gestured to the old black phone hanging on the wall of the kitchen. "That's a landline. It has to be connected to a physical phone line. A cell phone doesn't. They're also called mobile phones."

"There is no keypad. How does one place a call?" he asked, turning the phone about in his hands.

She took the phone from him with a smirk, and said, "Muggle magic." Holding the phone so he could see the screen, she pressed the button and used her thumb to unlock the screen. Severus' eyes widened as the phone lit up. "It's a touch-screen, Lou." As she outlined how to make a call and many other of the features of the phone, she pointed out regretfully that not many would work in this time. "So basically I can play some of the games, tell the time, and take pictures. Lovely," she finished with a huff.

"It's a camera, too?" Severus asked disbelievingly.

Lulabelle snorted a laugh. "Yeah, here," she took the phone from him and opened the camera app. "Smile," she told him, placing her arm around his shoulders where he sat and putting her face near his. She smiled at the screen while Severus simply raised his brow. Picture taken, she then opened the photo and handed the phone back to him.

As he stared at the screen, he said, "Lulabelle, this… this is amazing."

She openly laughed at that. "Lou, it's not even the latest model. There's just nothin' wrong with it, so I haven't seen the point in upgradin' yet. Plus my whole life is in that thing, and it's always a pain in the ass to switch everything over."

Stunned, and not entirely sure what she'd meant by her life being in her phone, he handed it carefully back to her. "You weren't exaggerating when you said 'muggle magic.'" He then watched, gobsmacked, as she carelessly tossed the astonishing device back into her purse.

"Well, it ain't all that at the moment, but it'll be great in thirty years," she said with a sigh. "I better let Sin in for his breakfast. He'll only take a few minutes to eat, then we can head out if you're ready to go."

"As you wish, madam."

She sat back in her seat after letting in the dog. "Lou. We don't have to do any of this if ya don't want to. Please don't go out of your way for me. I already feel like I'm takin' over your life…"

Severus interrupted her immediately. "Don't be foolish. You are much too intelligent to act like a dunderhead. Enough of this. Now, where is your beast's lead? If we are going, we might as well go soon," he said decisively, brushing off her concerns as he stood.

Lulabelle blinked back tears at the brusque acceptance from the normally reserved man. Sure, he hadn't offered gushing words of praise, but coming from Severus Snape, coming from her Lou, he had just told her that he thought she hung the moon. She shook her head and latched onto the last part of what he'd said. "Wait. Sinaka can come?"

"Of course, madam. We are going to London's magical district. He is a magical creature. Why wouldn't he come?"