Just realised

Harry, Ron and Hermione were all sat on the sofa deep in conversation. Ginny knew she could have squeezed in as well, but hearing their recollections of times gone by, shared together battling evil or some days just detention she recognised that she would never really be a part of that special bond that the three of them shared, forged and tempered over the last four years. She didn't want to intrude. They accepted her without any complaint once term ended and they all took up residence at number twelve, and she knew that Hermione certainly enjoyed having another girl around, but she was well aware that she was the last minute add-in to a group that had been well established since before she even received her Hogwarts letter.

After all, at school she had her own friends from her year. It still wasn't the same though. Though she always seemed to get on well with everyone in Gryffindor, there was nobody that was around in the holidays, they each had their own families and best friends to spend the summer with, and there was nobody who knew about the order in her year, so they couldn't come here in any case….

She wandered through to the next room, picking up her book from the table, and curling one foot underneath her, took up her place in the windowseat looking out to the front of the house as the setting sun cast its golden, pink-tinged rays across the silhouetted skyline. Beautiful. She watched the bands of purple cloud drifting across the scene and was momentarily lost in the moment, forgetting even her loneliness.

But she was no longer alone.

Sirius Black entered the room silently and caught sight of her framed against the soft light of the tall window. She looked so vulnerable, one knee tucked up tight to her chest, with her slender arm curled round and her chin resting on her other hand. Her sheet of red hair hung down long and loose down her back and it was shining – positively glowing – with a myriad of subtle highlights where the fading light touched it. It looked like it was made of liquid copper and gold against her light skin.

He stared transfixed as she reached to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, and turning her profile full towards him, he recognised two things. Firstly; just how pretty a girl the youngest Weasley had become and closely following it, the realisation that he should not be anywhere near so affected by the first thought as he just had been.

She was just a kid for Merlin's sake. He really needed to get out of the house.

Late in bed that night, Hermione whispered to her friend, 'Tonks seemed rather pleased to hear that there were certain older guests included for tomorrow. I was watching her after dinner, to see who she was looking at. I think that Tonks likes Sirius – I mean, likes him likes him, you know?'

'Oh.' Ginny said, wondering why it felt like her heart had reached somewhere around her knees. What was it to her, anyway? But the thought of seeing Tonks kissing Sirius, of knowing that she and he might be…. It made her spine turn to ice.

Unable to sleep once more, late at night she pushed backed her covers and tiptoed down the creaking old staircase. Standing in the kitchen, she paced back and forwards with a glass of water in hand and looked out at the moonlit garden. Summer nights never seemed to get truly dark, she reflected. A sudden urge led her to slip open the door and step outside onto the dewy lawn, wet beneath her bare feet as she stood in her slip of a nightdress. She looked up at the midnight blue sky and its scattering of bright stars, crisp in the firmament and span round, arms held out to her sides till she became dizzy; then lay back on the ground, unheeding of the dampness against her bare legs and through the thin fabric of her shift.

A large black dog watched, unseen, from the depths of the shrubbery. He could smell the subtle fragrance of the girl the moment that she stepped out from the dark house, and something about the scent made him want to rumble with pleasure deep within his chest. His mongrel ears cocked to attention as she twirled and her skirt fanned out. His tail began to wag involuntarily even as he chided himself sternly for the avidity with which even the human part of his mind regarded the slender figure he could see all too clearly beneath her frankly inadequate garment. What was she thinking to come outside on a night like this, dressed like that? He had come out here, to run free as an animal for a time to avoid thinking about what she looked like.

It had been a long time since Sirius Black, one time Romeo of Hogwarts, had been with a woman. Long years in prison and a life on the run were not exactly conducive to forming meaningful relationships, and while he had not remained celibate throughout his time abroad with buckbeak, his involvements had been fleeting and since returning to his childhood home he had grudgingly acceded to the demands to remain underground, venturing out only in his canine guise.

Seeing the beautiful girl in the first oh-so-tempting bloom of youth who had broken through to his sensibilities so startlingly only earlier today laying down, damn it, invitingly, on the moonlit grass wearing next to nothing with her hair splayed out framing her face was sweet torture to the man who watched through a dog's colourblind eyes. He fought the impulse to whine like a puppy and debated whether or not to make himself known to her. He couldn't help but feel rather like a dirty old man as he peered out from the bushes at the teenager who believed herself alone but the thought that she was forbidden fruit somehow appealed to his sense of challenge, of risk. He always had liked to live life on the edge and having a healthy disregard for the rules; the spice of danger only added to the sweetness of a seduction.

Ginny shut her eyes and thought about the coming day. She thought about her friendships, she thought about the twins' plans, and she thought about Harry, but most of all, she thought about Sirius.

She opened her eyes, horrorstruck, as she felt something warm and wet tickling at her toes. Her heart skipped a beat until she saw that it was only a dog licking her feet, but then it skipped two more as she realised that this was not just some stray that had made its way into the garden by chance.

'Snuffles?' she said enquiringly, 'Sirius…?' The dog regarded her with slate grey eyes in the exact shade she had been picturing moments before, but transfigured into those of a scruffy yet loveable beast of a dog, head tilted to one side and tail thumping as though he knew he was adorable.

She smiled and reached to pet him unselfconsciously, scratching behind his velvet soft ears and stroking his silky black fur, reaching round to his sensitive tummy. Damn but she was good. The dog appreciated the simple pleasure of the sensation and the closeness it bestowed, but the man in him was driven to distraction by the desire to have those hands touch him in his own form.

Sweet merlin he should not be thinking this; even given that as the dog, his instincts bubbled closer to the surface, these thoughts should not be plaguing him. The girl wasn't trying to act the part of some damned temptress; she was just ….

She impulsively dropped a kiss on the end of his muzzle; he could not resist licking her face, her neck, as she giggled and shuffled away from him across the grass, pushing him back. 'Down boy, bad dog!' she laughingly told him. 'Do you think I want your slobber all over me?' a blush crept up the side of her neck and rose to her face at this comment. Interesting, he thought. And then mentally slapped himself. He could not put his tongue on any part of her, let alone all over.

But maybe snuffles could, without too much of a scandal arising, the playful side of his mind suggested…

He licked her hand and whined, turning his most adorable puppydog eyes up to her face. 'Oh, alright then. You're not a bad dog. Though why you should care, as you're not really a dog at all, I'm sure I don't know.' She said, bemused.

He thumped his tail on the ground and licked her bare legs.