Lucy went back into the guest room and closed the door. When she turned around Sirius had that look in his eye. "No."

"What?" he asked, pretending innocence.

"You know what. Maybe later. When we're in our own home and our own bed. We're making Dinah feel awkward enough as it is." She quickly changed while Sirius stood, watching.

"You look…different."

Her eyebrows lowered in suspicion, "Different is usually code for ugly."

He shook his head, "Just not used to seeing you in pants is all. You look good."

Lucy wasn't sure she believed him, "Even in the green? Everyone loves to put a ginger in green. It emphasizes my hair, my porcelain skin, and my green eyes."

"You don't have green eyes, but it still looks good on you," he kissed her cheek before trying to move over to her lips.

Lucy pushed him away; "Nice try and if we weren't going to a bookstore it might have worked. Speaking of which we should probably head downstairs." She opened the door and looked back at him.

"You first. After all I am a gentleman."

Lucy snorted, "Yeah, you just want to use me as cover is all. Lucky for you I really want to go to this Muggle bookstore and I don't want to wait for you to," she waved her hand at him, "well you know."

Downstairs the pair entered the living room to see Dinah smiling up at Severus, apparently over something he'd said, or perhaps it was just because he was holding her hand. Not to be outdone, Sirius grabbed one of Lucy's hands before the other couple noticed their presence.

Dinah's smile didn't disappear when Severus let go of her hand. She just shook her head fondly in his direction and then turned to Lucy and Sirius; "Ready to go? I have the car warming up outside."

"Yes!" Lucy started to lead the group outside, saying, "This is about the point where Aunt Molly would look at Uncle Arthur and swear I must be his child."

"Because of the car and the bookstore?" Dinah asked with a laugh, leading them outside to the large rumbling piece of metal with wheels and clicking some sort of button on her key ring. There was a clicking noise and Dinah opened the back door. "Do you two mind sitting in the back?"

"Not at all," Lucy figured it was probably safer in the back anyway with the noises the car was making. She shoved Sirius in the car ahead of her saying, "It's probably more to do with my enthusiasm over Muggle things than any specific object—" She turned to look back at Sirius sitting in the seat by the open door; "Would you get all the way in or do you expect me to crawl over you?"

Dinah laughed, "I hate it when people do that. Granted, it's sometimes hard to decide who gets to sit where. It's even worse with kids."

Lucy rolled her eyes, "He is a kid," she turned back to Sirius, arms crossed in front of her chest; "If you don't move over we'll be late to the bookstore and I won't be happy." She didn't even have to threaten to kick him out of bed. Not that she'd make him sleep on the couch, she thought that was rather petty, but he always assumed she would and that was enough she supposed. He silently moved over and Lucy climbed in, flashing him a smile.

Dinah shut the door behind them and then let Severus in the front before coming around to the driver's seat. "Well, here goes," she said and began to back out of the drive.

The sensation of being in a moving car wasn't unlike that of riding a broom, except for the lack of wind. It was also more comfortable seeing as Lucy was sitting in a seat rather than on a hard, skinny stick. Lucy leaned forward to peer at the front of the car. "That thing tells the car which direction to go, right? And those? What do those do?" she pointed at an area past the steering wheel where different arrows pointed at many different numbers and dash marks.

"Why does it matter?" Severus grumbled.

Dinah ignored him. "Various things. Like how fast you're going and how much petrol you have left. Things like that."

"Oh," Lucy said, leaning back into her seat. "It doesn't really matter I suppose, I was just curious is all." She turned, pressing her face up against the glass, "Ah!" she screeched as the glass started moving downward; "Did I do something wrong?"

"Careful!" Dinah said with a laugh. "That little lever-button underneath your elbow rolls down the window."

"You think you should perhaps be looking at the road and not at Lucy's elbow?" Severus muttered.

"Oh, hush!" Dinah said, "I've been driving a lot longer than you have. Now Lucy, could you push up on the lever, please? It's getting kind of cold with that open."

"Not a problem. I don't want to return to Hogwarts with a cold," she used one hand to push the lever up and leaned forward, tapping Severus on the shoulder, "You know, I think that's one of the first times you've ever used my name."

Before Severus could respond Dinah turned and smiled at Lucy; "He's been calling you that to me in private for awhile now. I think it's because he hears me talking about you all the time," she laughed, "Actually he probably uses your name more than he uses mine."

"You wouldn't know who I was talking about if I didn't use a name," Severus said.

"Still," Dinah said, "I'd assume you'd say Professor Ketteridge. You did at first, but..."

"Well, as you say, your own references must have rubbed off," he replied.

Lucy shrugged, "Our habits rub off on others I suppose. For instance I find myself spending more time outside then I would have before I lived with Sirius. I think he just likes doing it because he can not because he actually enjoys the outdoors."

She squealed when Sirius wrapped his arms around her waist and hauled her firmly back into the seat next to him. "Get back here and stop telling tales about me," he said with a peck on the cheek.

"I'm doing nothing but telling the truth," she said, smiling. A few moments later she gasped and pointed out the window, "Is that it?"

"That's it!" Dinah pulled into what appeared to be a gigantic square-shaped black road in front of the building. She stopped the car in-between some yellow lines that made an almost-rectangle.

Lucy looked around them, slightly disappointed, "This doesn't look like much of a book store."

"I don't think this part is the actual store, Lu," Sirius said, opening his door and exiting the car.

Dinah laughed, "This is just the car park. I have to leave my car somewhere while we're inside the store, don't I?"

Lucy was sure her face was pink with embarrassment. It certainly felt like it. "I suppose you do. I guess you should lead, Dinah, as you know where we're going."

They all clambered out of the car and Dinah led the way to a large brown building with a strange, large window in front. It turned out that the window was a door of some sort, and Dinah pushed open one side of it. They walked through a tiny, rectangular room which was as cold as it was outside. And then another set of strange glass doors led the way into a large room full of shelves and shelves of books. A great deal of people, too. Lucy supposed that wasn't too surprising as it was getting close to the holidays and wizards' stores experienced a surge in sales, much like this Muggle store seemed to be enduring.

She probably looked like an idiot. A grown woman marveling at something as mundane as a bookstore. Still, it was new to her and this was a store nearly filled with books she'd never heard of. She had not yet taken her fill of looking at the store when she was shoved from behind. The rather short, skinny woman muttered; "God, the nerve of some people, just stand in front of the door why don't you, so no one else can get in!"

The woman was gone before Lucy could do more than huff, "Well, that was rude. Even if I was in the wrong a simple 'excuse me' would have been nice."

"I wouldn't expect excellent manners from any Muggles," Snape smirked, "That said, I do believe the rest of us would like to get in further past this doorway. You wouldn't particularly mind going forward now, would you?"

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you weren't all in," Lucy wandered farther into the store and through some aisles, the rest of the party following her. "Oh! Let's head over that way. That's my section!"

Sirius just rolled his eyes and followed.

Every so often Lucy would pull a book off the shelf and read the back before either returning it to its place or adding it to the ever-growing pile of books she carried.

"And can I ask how you plan on paying for all of those?" Sirius asked her.

"Oh…well…um…"

Dinah laughed, "Good question, Sirius! Well, I think we can figure out the exchange rate and I can cover you. But you're going to owe me an awful lot of Galleons," she winked.

Lucy was only slightly embarrassed. It wasn't as if her love of books was a secret after all. "Thanks Dinah. I honestly didn't really think about it. I have a line of credit at Flourish and Blotts so I can do things like this from time to time. Generally speaking most of my income goes to buying books anyway so paying you back shouldn't be too hard. I really try to limit myself on the amount of books I get when I go to a book store. So," she placed the book she had been looking at back on the shelf, "I'm done."

"Are you sure?" Sirius asked, clearly not believing her.

"Yes, I'm sure," she looked longingly at the book she had just put back.

He grabbed the book off the shelf and placed it on top of Lucy's pile, "I'll pay for that one. As long as that's okay with you, Dinah. I wouldn't want you to strain yourself financially just for this crazy lady."

"You have Muggle money?" Dinah asked, raising an eyebrow.

Snape snorted, "Figures."

"A small amount," Sirius said, narrowing his eyes and watching Snape, but not quite looking him in the eye, "You never know when you might need it."

Lucy looked up at the ceiling when a voice announced, "Dear Waterstone's shoppers. Please be advised that the store will be closing in fifteen minutes. If you have finished making your selections please take them to cashiers and finish your purchases. Thank you and please come again."

"Are you sure you're finished?" Sirius asked Lucy.

She blushed; he was giving her that 'I think you're weird but I love you anyway' look he tended to give her any time books were involved. "Yes. I'm sure. Fifteen minutes isn't really that much time anyway. That is, I'm done if everyone else is ready."

"Actually, there's a section I'd like to go visit, if you don't mind," Dinah said.

"Oh, that's no problem. You should have said something! I wouldn't have minded. Of course, maybe you did and I just didn't notice. I tend to go into my own little world when I'm book shopping. The building could be on fire and I probably wouldn't even notice unless the book I was holding was enflamed."

"You don't want to buy any of those strange picture books, do you?" Severus asked, ignoring Lucy.

Dinah smiled at him; "Why, yes, as a matter of fact I do want to buy one of those strange picture books. I also wanted to drop by the mystery section and see if my favorite author has released anything new."

"Picture books? What…oh you mean those magma things you showed me once. The ones with the characters who have big eyes and incredibly enormous boobs?"

Sirius's head popped up, "Boobs? Enormous ones?"

Lucy rolled her eyes, "That whole conversation and all you heard was boobs?"

"Well…"

"I swear you never got past the age of sixteen. Ignore him, Dinah."

"Um..." Dinah looked amused, "Yes, those books. Actually, there can be a lot of cultural, psychological, and sociological debate brought up about why so many Japanese comics insist upon making their female characters so busty... but that's neither here nor there," she grinned and led them to the magma section.

"I've thought about borrowing one or two of these and teaching them in my classes but I don't think the parents would appreciate it much. Though maybe there are some that aren't quite so….revealing."

"You can try children's manga," Dinah said. "They're usually better."

"Manga? You should have told me I was using the wrong word!" Lucy smiled, "You're probably right about the children's stuff. At this point though I should probably just wait until next year if I want to incorporate it into my syllabus."

Dinah grinned, "Sorry, I couldn't resist letting you call it magma for awhile. And yeah, you might want to wait until you know a little more about it before you teach it, too. I myself think I'll take this one," she grabbed a manga with something that looked like a mermaid on the cover. "Now to the mystery section!"

Once there Sirius looked at Lucy. "Are you sure you don't want one of these, too?"

Lucy shook her head, "I can't afford the entire store." She lifted the book he had placed in her arms earlier, "I could have put this one back but you insisted on me having it. I do have some self control, you know."

Sirius shrugged, "You wanted it. I have no problem buying it for you."

"Just because I want something doesn't mean I should have it, but in this case I'm not going to argue too hard. Anyway if I'm nice and ask politely Dinah might be inclined to allow me to borrow a book or two after she's read them."

"Feel free," Dinah smiled, then pulled a paperback book from the shelf she had been perusing, piling it on top of the manga, "I think that's all for now. Let's check out, if you're ready."

As Lucy followed Dinah through the store along with the rest of them, Severus snatched the manga from Dinah and began to flip through it.

"Please, go ahead, take a look," Dinah said in a sarcastic tone.

"I'm just attempting to decipher the meaning of this," Severus ignored her tone, turning the book upside down to look at it from a different angle, "What kind of art warps the human figure like this?"

"Severus, you are not looking at the large breasts, too, are you?" Dinah exclaimed, looking appalled.

"As a matter of fact I was referring to the eyes," Severus gave her a look.

"Don't let him lie to you, Dinah. We're always looking at the boobs," Sirius said.

"Shut up!" Lucy smacked Sirius, trying to keep the men from going at it in the middle of a Muggle bookstore. "I'm sure Severus actually was talking about the eyes. He happens to be a bit of a gentleman, while you are definitely a pig."

"Dog, actually."

Lucy rolled her eyes.

"You're right," Dinah smiled, walking up to Severus and politely snatching the book back from him, "He is a bit of a gentleman, isn't he?"

Severus cleared his throat and began walking faster. Dinah smiled and hurried to keep up with him, and it seemed to Lucy that she was standing as close as she could without actually touching him. She smiled. It seemed that Dinah truly was changing the professor. Slowly, to be sure, but changing him.