Chapter 7 – Moving In!
Disclaimer: We do not own anything that is recognisable as J. K. Rowling's.
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Sirius' mouth was tight with anger as he paced the floor of her lounge.
"And you're telling me that this... bastard took you for all you had, and you were engaged..."
Heather nodded slowly, watching him nervously from her sitting position on the sofa. "That's right," she whispered, but she wasn't sure whom he was angrier at: her fiancé for taking her money, or her for getting duped so easily.
"I'm going to kill him," Sirius threatened, rubbing his fists.
Heather paled and stood up, grasping his shoulder. "There's no need to do that. The mistake is mine."
He turned to look at her, his pale eyes flashing. "You're expecting me to believe that it's your fault that your ex-fiancé ran off and took all your money? I think not."
"Sirius..." Heather pleaded and his face softened slightly. "If it's ok, can we change the subject? I'm not up to talking about this right now."
Heather sat back down and put her head in her hands. Sirius sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
Lifting her head, she thought of an idea. "I could get a job as a cleaner – I could do that..." She looked around the small room and the mess and grimaced. "Ok, so maybe that's out. I could be a dinner-lady or a filing clerk..." she mumbled, testing out each idea in her brain.
Sirius looked at her, an odd look on his face. "Heather..."
"Maybe a street cleaner; I would only have to operate one of those big muggle machines and they never look too hard."
"Heather…"
"But then again, I've never been very good at using machinery. Uhh... I know! I could be a prostitute! I could probably do that..."
"Heather!" Sirius raised his voice to try and get her attention, annoyed at the thought of Heather having to lie back while more guys like Chetwin defiled her.
She gazed up at him with confused eyes. "What?"
"My offer still stands, you know. You could move back to England and live with me."
"Live with you?" she parroted. "I thought you were just trying to make me feel better."
Sirius frowned. "I never say what I don't mean."
Heather smiled. "I bet you do."
"No, I don't."
"But, if move back to England, my debts will follow me. I have to find another job and pay them off – I can't just sell the house because it's not mine!"
Sirius sighed. "I'll take care of it."
"I can't let you do that. And besides, where are you going to get that much money from? You've been in Azkaban for twelve years and have only been out for four…"
Sirius winced when she mentioned the place where he had been kept prisoner and Heather was immediately penitent. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"It's ok. You didn't mean anything by it," he assured, but his eyes became haunted for a moment. Ignoring Heather's look of concern, he continued. "I've still got a fair bit of money in Gringotts. It'll cover the debts."
"You don't have to do that. I've managed for a while without any help and I'll cope through this." Heather sounded braver than she felt.
"But it's my fault you're in this position – I made you lose your job," he affirmed.
"That's true," Heather smiled without reproach. "But I was going to quit anyway… eventually. This way, you've saved me a job!"
Sirius didn't smile. "I'd prefer it if you moved in with me; I won't take no for an answer. That way, you can have a place to live while you find a job. A purely temporary fix," Sirius laid out.
"Well, there was a job opening back in the English Ministry that would have suited me…" Heather was slowly being persuaded.
"And now you have the chance to take it!" Sirius grinned, knowing he was close to triumph. "And you can be close to Florence while she is unwell…"
"Ok, ok! I'll do it. But it's only temporary," Heather stated clearly.
"Only temporary," Sirius agreed.
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Heather looked sadly at the empty house where she had lived for the past five years. She was going to miss the old place.
Picking up her suitcases, she was reminded of the fact that she had to keep in touch with all her Australian friends when she had reached England and smiled as she realised the amount of owling she had to do.
"Are you ready?" Sirius asked from behind her and she turned and smiled.
"Ready as I'll ever be."
Without another word, they apparated.
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"So, this is your house?" Heather asked curiously, as they stood in front of the London suburban house. It was the last place that she would have thought he'd live – a four-bedroom family house with expansive garden in Muggle territory.
"Sure is. I haven't been back for a while so it'll probably be a bit messy…" he said apologetically and she grinned.
"Mess I can live with."
"Come on, then." Sirius opened the front door and led her in, putting his share of her suitcases on the floor in the hall. "I'll take those up later. Lounge, kitchen, dining room, study, and garden…" he pointed out each room.
"Nice," she answered suitably.
"Upstairs…" he led her up the stairs and she was greeted to the sight of a long corridor, leading around a corner. "Bathroom… My bedroom and three spare rooms… I guess you'll have the biggest one." He pushed a door open and she saw a tidy yellow room with a small double bed and pine furniture."
"You keep all these rooms furnished?" Heather was surprised a single man would need all this furniture.
"Yeah. They're for when Remus or my sisters and their kids come to stay, though my nieces are a bit too old to do that now. I'll go and get your suitcases, while you settle in. Oh, I suppose you know that as this is a muggle area, we're not allowed to do magic?"
Heather smiled, nodding, and wandered further into the cheery, little room. Oddly, she felt immediately at home and was thankful for it. She didn't want to be uncomfortable.
With obvious ease, Sirius carried the suitcases up the stairs and put them down at the foot of her bed. "I'll start on supper. It should be ready in about half-an-hour."
"You can cook?" she asked amazed but he just smiled. Soon after, she could hear his heavy footsteps echoing down the stairs.
Shrugging, Heather reached for her first suitcase and began to unpack.
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"Mmm… that was nice." Heather placed her knife and fork down on her empty plate with a satisfied smile.
"I should hope so! It took me near on 15 minutes to perfect that." Sirius laughed and she joined in.
"And it's my turn to impress you tomorrow, ok?" She got up and went to the sink.
"What are you doing?" he asked, watching her.
"I'm going to clear up."
"There's no need – you're the guest."
"All the more reason for me to chip in! I'll wash and you can dry."
"Ok…"
Heather watched abstractedly as he opened the buttons of his shirt cuffs and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. His forearms were tanned, muscled and sprinkled with little black hairs and she wondered how on earth his arms could be so sexy.
Sirius cleared his throat and Heather realised that he had been watching her stare at his arms for a couple of minutes now. He was looking quite perplexed and Heather blushed bright red to the roots of her hair.
"Are you just..." Sirius cleared his throat again where his voice had got husky. He started again. "Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me clear up here? You can go to bed if you're tired..."
"Oh! No! I'm so sorry; I was lost in thought..." About your divine body… "I'm helping!" Heather picked up a dishrag and stared at it for a second before wiping down a plate. She lowered her head to hide her embarrassment.
Sirius stared at her back for a second, slightly bewildered at her behaviour. He'd given up trying to understand women but was intrigued at what was so interesting about his arms. Unless she had some sort of arm fetish... He doubted that. He got back to his drying up.
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Sirius stretched his arms over his head, getting rid of the groggy feeling of sleep. Pulling his bathrobe around him, he started down to the kitchen to get a drink. He stopped short in the hallway when he saw a pair of legs sticking out of the trapdoor in the loft. They were flailing madly with a strange rhythm and Sirius found himself speechless, just staring at them for a couple of minutes, before finally shaking himself out of it.
"Heather…?" he growled.
"Uh-oh." The legs stopped flailing and were lifted up into the attic, shortly after replaced with a sheepish blonde head. "Hello, Sirius," Heather smiled sweetly.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, nothing. Just hanging around."
"Hanging around is right; but what were you really doing?" Sirius lifted one eyebrow as Heather blushed.
"I just remembered that I had left something in my suitcase and I thought I'd go and get it."
"Hmmm…?"
"And I couldn't figure out where to get the ladder, so I climbed up the bookcase. And, now, I was trying to jump down." Heather finished sheepishly.
"Of all the…" Sirius cursed. "You could have hurt yourself! Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Well, you looked so peaceful…" Heather winced as she realised she couldn't explain why she had stood and watched him sleeping for about five minutes before she had started her ascent.
Sirius' disapproving expression melted into a grin. "Only you would choose climbing up a bookcase over waking someone up to help you find a ladder."
"Well, I don't know about that…"
"Have you found what you were looking for?"
"Yep." Heather waved a piece of paper at him and threw it down, along with a tattered, stuffed bear. The latter hit Sirius on the top of his head. "Oops!"
"Do you wanna come down now?" Sirius said with gritted teeth.
"Uhh… yeah, I guess."
Sirius sighed and reached inside his robe pocket for his wand. With an "accio ladder", the offending object flew out of an airing cupboard and positioned itself underneath the trap door..
"There."
Heather grimaced. "Now why didn't I think of that? If I'd have known it was that easy, I wouldn't have spent ten minutes trying to shimmy up that old thing." She gestured to the bookshelf that looked a little worse for wear.
Heather, with much effort, climbed down the ladder. When she reached the floor, she brushed the cobwebs out of her hair and grinned insanely.
"Here I am!"
Sirius looked at her intensely.
"Ok! If I promise that I won't do it again, will you stop looking as if you want to strangle me?"
"You'd better not do it again."
"Ok, ok! Well, I won't have to, now that I know where the ladder is!" She reached down and picked up the bear and papers. "At least Pudgy is ok."
"Yeah; his fall was broken by my head." Sirius reported dryly and Heather giggled. "You wanted to go up into the attic in the middle of the night for a bear?"
"Well, no. I wanted my C.V. so I could apply for that Ministry job and I found Pudgy while I was exploring."
Sirius just shook his head, bemused. Without another word, he started down the stairs.
Heather looked down at the stuffed bear and shrugged. "He's a very odd man. Don't you agree?"
Pudgy's silence said more than words.
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Authors' Notes:
Hello all!
Thanks for reading this chapter – sorry if it's a bit shorter than usual!
Special Thanks to:
Hopeful Writer, sapphireskies, Drachenaugen and Lyra the Fairy for all of your lovely and supportive reviews!
Love,
Martha and Squirrel. xxx.