[SIRIUS BLACK]
Sirius Black watches amusedly as Fred and George Weasley attempt to convince their younger brother that Azkaban has a bona-fide tattoo parlor in the bowels of the island.
Ron's eyes keep shooting from his brothers' deadpan faces to Sirius' visible body art in apparent disbelief. But at Sirius' failure to rebuke the twins, his expression slowly morphs into one of awe.
Hermione, sitting two seats down from Sirius on Harry's left, leans backwards, behind Harry, and says in an undertone, "You really oughtn't let them trick him."
Harry, sitting to Sirius' immediate left, allows a small smile to break his usually troubled face. "It's his own fault," Harry mumbles, "for being so bloody gullible all the time." He slides a teasing sidelong glance to Hermione, "Go on, 'Mione. Save him. You know you want to."
Sirius gazes disinterestedly at the galley kitchen where Molly is bustling away on breakfast, being rather unhelpfully assisted by his well-meaning cousin, Tonks. He knew the young girl had likely flushed at Harry's suggestion.
And alas, unable to help herself, they had only a few seconds to wait before she burst out, "Ron! Don't be stupid! Of course dementors don't give prisoners tattoos."
Ron gapes at her from the other side of the table. Twisting his neck to face Fred and George, he stands abruptly, "YOU SONS OF-," but ends suddenly on a yelp, as his tall frame had guided his head straight into one of the brass pans hanging from the ceiling.
Sirius and Harry snort in unison. Surprisingly, only Fred laughs openly, as George is busy twisting at the waist in order to look to the doorway of the dining room.
The chairs and stools from yesterday's meeting had been transfigured back to their original objects, and all that remains is the long, knobby wooden table and matching benches which the residents of Number Twelve use for informal dining. Marching across the now spacious-looking area is Ginny Weasley, who appears to be leading Sirius' shuffling houseguest by the sweatshirt-sleeve.
Finnie. Her name is Finnie.
The young woman's pale hair is wild, a voluminous mass of waves which frame and partially hide her extraordinarily pretty face. She is wearing his pajama bottoms, which are quite large on her, along with her mostly-destroyed forest green sweatshirt. Her bare toes are painted blue.
Ginny is grinning as she guides her to the table. "She was lost," the young redhead says with a smirk.
Finnie halts just behind Fred and George, and Ginny lets her go. "Your house is fucking confusing," she croaks to Sirius, sleep obviously not too far behind her. He chooses not to respond, but quirks an eyebrow.
Finnie nudges George's shoulder with her hip, "Scoot." He scrambles to make room between him and his twin, and she begins levering herself into the spot before there is enough space. Sirius realizes that both of her arms are folded inside of the sweatshirt, the sleeves empty.
Ginny rounds to the other side of the table and sits on Sirius' right.
Upon sitting, Finnie lets her head drop down to the table with an audible thunk. Sirius stares at her hair with open curiosity. He has to physically stop himself from picking up a tangled piece to see if it's as soft as it appears.
"Good morning!" Molly announces from her spot at the stove, chipper. "How are you feeling this morning, dear?" Finnie groans unintelligibly.
Tonks marches to the table, teapot in hand. "Tea's on," she sings, but then immediately turns back, "Whoops, forgot the cups."
As she returns, levitating several mugs in front of the waiting breakfasters, all of the other occupants keep an uncomfortable silence, eyes flitting from the head on the table and back to each other.
The head suddenly mumbles, "Wait, so, where did you get your tattoos?"
Sirius smiles despite himself and answers, "Muggle parlors. Mostly in London."
She raises her head at this. Pushing her arms back into her sleeves, she sticks them out straight in front of her on the table, hands raised palm-up in his direction. "Lemme see," she croaks, her eyes on his arm.
Without a second thought, he extends the arm in question to her. She catches it in a surprisingly firm grasp, her first finger and thumb encircling his wrist while her other hand eases down his jumper sleeve. The kids even lean in to take a look. Sirius realizes he has never really shown them his tattoos, and perhaps they have been too nervous to ask.
"Is…is that for my dad?" Harry asks on a whisper. The tattoo Finnie has mostly uncovered on the inside of his forearm is a silhouette of a stag, the inside of the silhouette was done up in navy and blues to look like the midnight sky.
"Yes," Sirius grunts. Finnie's warm grasp is incredibly distracting. "I have one for each of them. Even Wormtail." He pauses, and then shares, "His I actually scratched off while in Azkaban. Didn't want to see it anymore, so now it's just scarred skin."
Harry nods understandingly. His face suddenly breaks into a grin and he looks up into Sirius', "Did my dad have any? Tattoos, I mean."
Sirius allows a wolfish smile, "No, but your mum did."
On his right, Ginny shrieks, "Harry's mum had tattoos?" Fred and George guffaw good-naturedly, and George elbows Finnie – who is still holding Sirius' arm for the table's inspection – then wiggles his eyebrows as if to ask, 'and you?' But Finnie just smiles vaguely and holds Sirius' arm out over to Harry, so that the boy might get a closer look.
Sirius suddenly feels a pang of self-resentment for not having before talked about something as bloody banal as Lily's tattoo with her son. So, with everyone's attention still on him, he turns his body more fully to Harry and begins, "It was very similar to this one here on my arm, actually." Harry reaches his hand out as if to touch the ink, "But hers had only the head and shoulders of the stag, with colors like sunrise in the middle, unlike this one. It matched her hair better."
Harry swallows, but looks pleased, "Where was it? Was it on her arm like yours?"
Tonks settles onto the bench on Ginny's far side, a mug of hot tea in her hand, listening.
Sirius shakes his head, "No, hers was on her left shoulder blade, behind her heart." He can actually hear both Ginny and Hermione sigh at the romance of the gesture, but then drops the bomb, "James actually got to pick the spot because she lost the bet."
Finnie snorts audibly. Sirius' silver eyes swivel to meet her pale green ones. He finds himself just as taken aback by their color as he had been the night before, especially now as they sparkle with sardonic humor, "Wait, I'm sorry, she lost a bet and had to get the tat?"
Sirius blinks and looks away, feeling a bit stupid for being muddled by this strange bird's eyes.
Get a fucking grip.
He forces his smile to widen. "That's right. That's something we did every now and then. I got this one," he nods towards the stag, "because I bet James that he couldn't dye Remus' hair blue without him noticing."
The kids begin laughing, and Finnie gently releases his arm as she lets out a tinkling giggle which bizarrely makes his stomach grow warm.
Get. A fucking. Grip.
Sirius lowers the sleeve of his jumper once more as the giggling dies down. Tonks looks at him coyly over the top of her tea, "I can't help but notice, cousin, that you have a great many tattoos." The giggling begins again as Sirius winces.
"I'll admit," he says in a faux-remorseful tone, "that I may have been a bit reckless in placing bets at times. But-," he is quick to mention, "-not all of these are the product of lost wagers. Several were the product of original thought." He taps the side of his head with a wink. Tonks rolls her eyes at him.
Molly had begun levitating family-style platters loaded with breakfast onto the table, effectively ending the conversation. Ron was already extending a fork into one before it had even landed.
Finnie pipes up quickly as everyone else follows suit, claiming food, "Molly darling, is there coffee?" Mrs. Weasley frowns as she lowers herself onto the bench across from Tonks, "Oh, I'm sorry dear. We only have instant, but there's hot water still." The older woman begins to rise up off the bench once more, but Finnie leaps out of her seat with a sudden burst of energy, "No, no, don't get up. I can do it."
Finnie pads around the table, apparently excited by the prospect of coffee. Sirius chooses this moment to lean back slightly behind Ginny and murmur to Tonks, "You know, Remus lost a couple of wagers back in the day as well. I won't tell you where, but he's got a minimum of three-"
"Remus has got three what?" Lupin demands as he strides purposefully into the kitchen. Tonks' hair turns a deeper shade of blush pink, but she doesn't say a word. Before Sirius can make an excuse, Fred chimes in with, "Nipples – or so we heard."
Remus allows a small smile, "Very amusing." But, as his gaze sweeps the room and meets with Tonks'. They both hurriedly turn away. Lupin clears his throat, "Where is the girl… Finnie?" He asks the room at large.
"Yo," mumbles Finnie, rounding the table back from the kitchen, her face level with the mug in her hands. Sirius can't help but note the rather hypnotizing way his own pajama bottoms rest low on her swinging hips.
She begins lowering herself back into her seat, Fred helpfully piling pancakes onto her plate for her so that she can catch up. Remus looks a bit uncomfortable as he starts, "Actually, Finnie, if you wouldn't mind coming with me? The Headmaster would like a meeting."
All silverware clatter ceases, and silence reigns. No one seems to be able to decide if they should look to Finnie for her reaction, or glare at Lupin for the unwelcome summons. Sirius personally keeps his eyes on the woman. Her face and visible skin show no evidence of the confrontation the day before, but the memory of her blackened eye, bloodied ear, and broken wrist makes his blood start to boil anew. Unbidden, he feels himself grind his teeth while remembering how she had tried to make excuses for Dumbledore's behavior to Molly. "I goaded him," she had said.
Seemingly unruffled, Finnie commences pouring an ungodly amount of syrup onto her pancake mountain. Mid-pour, she raises her eyes to Remus and says simply, "After pancakes."
Everyone relaxes a little. As breakfast slowly resumes, Molly says firmly, "I'm going with you."
Oh, like hell.
"No," Sirius rebukes, to his own surprise, but with equal seriousness, "I'll go."
He feels his godson's eyes on him while he faces off with the Order matriarch. They had bonded, he and Molly, over their inexplicable attachment to the strange future girl. Just last night, after everyone had left for bed, he and Molly had shared an unheard-of post-dinner brandy, taking turns berating the old wizard for what was clearly an unprecedented loss of control.
Before the standoff over who would play hero could commence, however, Finnie speaks up through a mouthful of pancakes, "I'm fine. Everything will be fine. You guys are sweet, but I can handle it."
Remus had come fully into the kitchen, and was now seated next to Ron, nursing a cup of tea. His questioning gaze is on his best friend. "I will be taking her," he assures Sirius, despite his curiosity, "and I'm told that Moody will also be sitting-in on the meeting."
Tonks nods from her seat at the opposite end of the table. "Mad-eye won't let anything shifty happen, Fin. You're quite right, you'll be in good hands." But, less than a minute later, Tonks gasps suddenly, her eyes on Finnie's outstretched hand – the woman had been reaching yet again for more syrup. "What on earth is wrong with your nails?" Tonks practically screeches, "I thought Molly fixed you up last night! Doesn't that hurt terribly?"
Finnie withdraws her hand back and holds it against her chest, hidden. Sirius leans across his plate as though to wrench it free and take a look, but George beats him to it. Holding her wrist firmly, George pulls her hand out and squints at the fingers. She snatches it back, but not before any interested party could have gotten a glimpse at the middle two fingernails, which were split down the middle – from tip to cuticle. They look angry and infected, and were surely caused by her tumble in the pantry. Sirius feels the hand clutching his fork tighten until the knuckles are white. Next to him, Harry has gone a bit pale.
"Of course they fucking hurt," Finnie bites out, apparently peeved. "I hadn't even noticed them last night, but I figured I'd just nab some superglue and Neosporin while we're out shopping today." She glances down the table at Mrs. Weasley in an apparent mood to change the subject, "We can still go shopping, can't we? I need about 20 more pairs of underwear."
Sirius stiffens in his seat suddenly, his mind fleeing all thought of her ravaged nails. Instead traveling along the lines of the fact that Finnie is sitting across from him, wearing his clothes, and not wearing knickers. Next to him, Harry chokes back a laugh at this, and at the sudden veracity with which his godfather had begun attacking his food.
Mrs. Weasley smiles kindly, "Of course, we'll set off as soon as you're back from your words with the Headmaster." She then adds, "But I'll be having a look at your nails before we leave. Tonks – will you be joining us?"
Tonks nods with enthusiasm, "I'd love to, actually. I've got quite a number of things to pick up in Diagon Alley-"
Finnie suddenly shrieks unintelligibly. Sirius nearly jumps out of his skin, and reflexively reaches for the wand in his back pocket. "DIAGON ALLEY?" she breathes, her face a luminous mask of delight – Sirius feels his heart stutter for some reason. "We're going to go to Diagon Alley? Holy shit!"
"What?" Harry asks her with a chuckle, "Why are you so excited? Haven't you been before?"
She shakes her head, her smile is still as wide as it can be.
"It's because she's a muggle," Hermione explains softly, her eyes on Finnie.
The air in the room seems to disappear. Everyone, even Ron, stopped eating abruptly and looks at Hermione in shock.
Finnie's smile fades into a much softer one, her eyes dimming as well as she looks at Hermione. "Clever girl," she whispers, kindly.
Everyone's heads swivel to her in further shock, but Hermione beams. "I thought so, last night," she breathes in a quick, excited voice, "when you didn't seem to have a wand, and opened that bottle by hand." She continues, her words spilling out even more rapidly, "Mr. Weasley said something about Rolling Stones tickets, and you never repaired your sweatshirt, and you make your coffee by hand, and use medicine instead of magic—"
"— and you've never been to Diagon Alley…" Mrs. Weasley murmurs, almost to herself.
Hermione looks stricken suddenly, "I'm – I'm terribly sorry. Was it meant to be a secret?"
Finnie snorts, "Of course not." She looks around the table, at everyone who was treating her so normally just moments ago, and seems to deflate a little. "Sorry if that's disappointing to anyone," she says very matter of fact, "I'm not certain why McGonagall didn't mention it with everything else last night, but yeah." She raises one hand up, as though making an oath at an addiction meeting, "I'm Finnie, and I am a muggle."
Fred and George grin but straighten in their seats and respond in somber unison, "Hullo, Finnie."
She sighs and looks to the ceiling, continuing her speech, "I've been a muggle for about 26 years now. I've drank muggle beer, attended muggle school, enjoyed driving a car, and even flown in an airplane."
Ginny laughs, breaking any residual tension. "Dad's gonna go bananas for you, Finnie," she says with a smile.
"Oh I hope so," Finnie says with a serious nod, resuming the excavation of her pancakes. "I can't think of another time in my life during which my ridiculous knowledge of how to light a lightbulb using a fucking potato will come across more brilliantly than here with you all."
Next to Sirius, Harry lets out a chuckle. He glances down at his godson, one eyebrow raised.
"It's something we do," Harry says in a low voice, still smiling, "in school, I mean. Learning how to conduct electricity through potatoes."
But Sirius hasn't yet cracked a smile. He wrestles with himself just slightly, feeling more than a little dense. How had he not surmised that Finnie was a muggle? And now that he knows this, why is it that he feels only more obsessively fascinated? Finnie is charming, he supposed. She's very pretty, and she's a laugh.
No, there's something else.
Sirius can feel something in her, something that he recognizes when her eyes flash and she curses up a storm. It's a strange feeling this muggle girl gives him, almost like he has the capacity to understand her very well.
Sirius Black has not felt very poignant connections between himself and the people around him since escaping from prison. He blames it on the dementors, on having lost an integral piece of himself in that place, and he is strangely at peace with this. Who wouldn't lose themselves a little after 12 years in Azkaban? Most witches and wizards lost themselves completely in a far shorter amount of time. He still laughs, he still loves his godson and his friends, and he still feels strongly about fighting the war. But, he also feels like a different person, like a far more removed version of himself is now living his life.
Until yesterday, that is.
He glances up from his contemplation to find Finnie giving him a very determined look. Her nose twitches just a tad, and he sees for the first time that she's got a smattering of freckles just across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Her green eyes are blazing, and she looks as though she is daring him to give a shit that she isn't a witch.
He breaks free of his self-indulgent reverie and gives her a sarcastic smile, "Just don't go giving me any of those damn chicken pox, or whatever the hell it's called."
Ron looks horrified, "Chicken pox? What in the blazes is chicken pox?" Hermione smiles indulgently at him and tries to explain.
Tonks, her mouth full of oatmeal, speaks to Finnie, "No offense babe, you're a laugh and everything, but what exactly brought you to us instead of someone else?" She swallows then finishes, "What with how you were chosen by fate and all, I mean."
Finnie shrugs, but keeps her eyes down. "I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine, really." George chimes in with, "Come now, Fin. You've got to have some extraordinary talents which will arm us against Voldy, eh?"
Fred nods in agreement and adds, "You're just being modest. I'm sure that your excellent muggle-powers of potato experimentation will aid the Order and 'The Chosen One' in far superior ways than simply lighting a lightbulb under his arse."
Harry flinches, but smiles. Finnie taps her finger against her chin as though in deep thought. "You know, now that you say it," she muses, "I really do have a knack for making extremely tiny paper footballs. I'm also pretty damn great at hacky-sack, which I remember being quite the enviable skill here in the 90s." She pauses but then continues with, "Oh! And I played the trumpet in high school."
Lupin suddenly interjects, "It is my impression, Miss Sjofn, that your talent lies most with the information that only you at this table hold, regarding the future of the war and its participants."
Finnie wrinkles her nose, but concedes, "That is true."
Sirius raises an eyebrow at Remus for killing the mood. His friend shrugs.
With a slightly shaky voice, Hermione asks, "What all exactly do you know, Finnie?"
"Oh everything and nothing," Finnie says airily, getting up off the bench, the pancake mountain conquered. But she continues, "Nothing I knew is necessarily true anymore, hence our conundrum. But –," and she keeps her eyes down, "I once knew all about how to defeat him, who dies and who lives, who gets together, who gets married, and who is born."
No one seems to dare to breathe at this. It feels incredible that she could know all of those things, that even some of those things could be known.
Finnie, seeming resigned to this response, lifts her chin to Remus and says, "Ready when you are, Mooney." With a jolt, Lupin gets to his feet and leads the way to the fireplace at the far end of the room. With a flick of his wand, a fire roars in the grate, and he reaches into his pocket for floo powder to take them to the Headmaster's office. Remus glances briefly at her over his shoulder and asks, "You don't want to get your shoes first?"
She just shakes her head and mumbles, "I don't give a fuck." But before Lupin has managed to grasp a full handful of powder, Hermione calls out, "Are – are you allowed to tell us? About what happened before?"
Finnie hesitates from her position across the room, and says, "I wouldn't want to upset anyone…but, if you really want me to, I don't see why not." She raises her bright eyes to Sirius, specifically, and lowers her voice, "First thing you should do is call Kreacher. Forbid him from leaving the premises without your permission, and I'll explain the rest when I get back." She then twists her neck to look at Tonks, then Remus, "And you two need to get the fuck over it. You're supposed to end up together, and the longer you fuck around the longer you just delay what's supposed to happen."
Sirius is still reeling by what she may have meant about his house-elf. Tonks is gaping at the girl, her hair blushing into a deep fuchsia. Remus looks equally struck-dumb. Molly looks downright smug.
Taking the initiative, Finnie takes a pinch of powder from the sack still held in Lupin's motionless hand. She dashes it into the fire, balking for only a moment, but steps in once it turns green. She gives everyone a rueful grin before clearly saying, "Dumbledore's Office," and whooshing out of sight.