"I wonder if Voldemort should be more afraid of you than he is of me," said Harry, as they went inside the house for lunch.
"He'd better learn to be afraid of me," Lucy replied with a grim certainty. "I used to be in law enforcement before I met Marcus. And I was darned good at it, even if I do say so myself." She opened up the refrigerator, then shut it again. "Would you like pizza, Harry? With or without anchovies?"
"Yes, please. I've never had it with anchovies."
Lucy gave Harry a particularly sweet smile. "That's one of my concessions to my past life. Marcus hasn't succeeded in eliminating all of my guilty pleasures, though he did insist that I learn to prepare pizza properly, with the cracker-like crust. Since he's not here, we can fix it for ourselves." Lucy crossed over to the counter and opened a flour tin, then poured some of the flour into a large Cuisinart. "Who takes care of law enforcement in the wizarding world, Harry?"
"That's done by Aurors, on the orders of the Ministry of Magic. Frank Longbottom was an Auror, that's why he and his wife were attacked and tortured by the Death Eaters."
"Is that so?", said Lucy, her face taking on a stern cast. "Harry, could you get the other Cuisinart from down below in that cabinet on your left? Thank you. You'll find a box of Roma tomatoes in the larder." She poured some yeast into a small bowl, then added lukewarm water. "We'll let that sit for ten minutes, so the yeast can activate." She took the tomatoes from Harry and put them in a colander, then put it into the kitchen basin and ran water over them to rinse them clean. "So how does one go about becoming an Auror, Harry?"
"I don't know, for sure. I do know that it requires years of training and nerves of steel. It's a dangerous job."
"Danger doesn't frighten me," Lucy said as she put a covered pot of water on the stove. "The most dangerous thing can be to do nothing." She added olive oil, salt and water to the flour in the large Cuisinart. "I found that out the hard way." She turned on the burner under the covered pot. "We'll boil this water, then drop the tomatoes in it to split their skins, it makes it much easier to peel them cleanly. In fact," she said, lifting out the tomato-filled colander in the sink, "we should let these chill in the fridge a few minutes, for this to work the best."
"Let me get the door." Harry opened the refrigerator door for her, and got a glimpse of Lucy's left cheek. There was this interesting mole, high on her cheekbone, all black instead of brown like most moles. A bit of a classroom lecture by Professor Binns came back to him, one of the few Binns lectures during which he actually was awake: "....the French, Muggles and wizards alike, believe that a mole placed high on the cheek denotes courage..."
Lucy set down the tomatoes, then pulled out some mushrooms and onions out of the crisper, along with a half pound of fresh anchovies. "Here, Harry, you can slice these on the cutting board over there. Use the knives in the block."
She stepped back for a moment, just as the doorbell rang.
Lucy quickly wiped her hands on a paper towel, then ran to the foyer. As always, she looked at the TV monitor before opening the door. What she saw gave her pause.
"Harry," Lucy called out, "come here for a minute, please, and tell me if this is anyone you know."
"What does he look like?", Harry asked tensely as he ran to join Lucy.
"This", she replied, pointing at the monitor. The monitor showed a tall, filthy, black-haired man, dressed in ragged robes, thin to the point of emaciation.
"It's Sirius!" Harry cried. "Let him in, it's okay! He's my godfather."
There was a loud snick as Lucy undid the electronic lock. The door opened upon a man with hollow eyes and an expression prepared to be hostile, yet willing to be polite.
"Good morning," he said, in a raspy voice. "My name is Sirius Black. I understand that you are caring for my godson, Harry Potter."
Lucy looked up, politely yet fearlessly, into those haunted eyes. "You've come to the right place, Mr. Black. Won't you come inside? Harry and I are just starting to make lunch. Would you like some?"
The ragged man smiled; Lucy had the sudden intuition that he hadn't done much in the way of smiling, or talking, for quite some time. "Why, yes, I would, Miss --"
"Stellanova. Lucy Stellanova. Come right this way, Mr. Black," Lucy said.
"Call me Sirius, please," said Sirius faintly as he stepped over the threshold.
Or tried to.
Lucy saw his eyes roll back in his head before his body even started to fall. She caught him in her arms and dragged him to a couch as a shocked Harry closed the door.
"Harry, go into Dr. Reader's office and get his black briefcase, quickly," she said, putting Sirius into a comfortable position on the couch. Harry was speeding towards Reader's office before she'd finished speaking. "He's horribly malnourished. We need to inject some sustenance directly into his bloodstream, and fast."
Harry was back within seconds with the briefcase, by which time Lucy had already rolled up the sleeve on Sirius's left arm and found an appropriate vein. Lucy opened the briefcase, found the hypo, found the right vial. She was soon injecting its contents into Sirius.
"This should bring him round in about a minute or two, Harry," she said. "Go into the kitchen and bring me a glass of water for when he wakes up. We need to get fluids into him before he can tackle solid food."
