"What was all that about?" Sirius asked.

Lucy stepped back and leaned on the counter somewhat self-consciously, "I don't want to tell you. You'll get angry."

Sirius rolled his eyes. She knew he thought she was being silly. "It can't have been that bad. There's really only one thing in this house I care about and she seems to be all in one piece."

She smiled and looked at the floor. She knew he knew the gesture meant she was pleased by his comment but still didn't want to tell him what she was going to tell him. It didn't stop her from doing it all the same. "You can't say anything to him. I'm not sure if Dinah wants me telling you and I'm positive Severus wouldn't like it. Don't forget I have to work with him and I like her."

"I wouldn't dream of saying anything."

Lucy just stared at him.

"Okay, I would but I won't, at least not to anyone but you."

"That'll have to do I suppose," she said, half smiling. He did seem to be trying to be civil so she could have a decent friendship with Dinah. "Severus and Dinah were alone and from what Dinah says they were making out and something, I don't know what, reminded him of Lily and he sort of pulled away and decided he had to leave until tomorrow. Needless to say it left her a little frustrated and confused about what she should do."

"If it were anyone but Snivellus-"

Now Lucy glared at him.

"He's not here," he said before continuing, "I'd recommend she grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, and persuade him to get the job done."

"It's not that simple. I mean look at how long it took us…"

"That was all you. And," he continued before she could respond, "I think I was very gentlemanly about the whole thing. Besides neither one of us was left…frustrated."

She rolled her eyes. Sex. It was pretty much all he thought of. She pushed away from the counter and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a proper kiss hello. "Did you have a good time?"

"Mmmm," he mumbled, trying to go back for more, "Always do," he said when she pulled away a bit. "Teddy asked for you," he told her, pulling her down onto his lap.

Sirius managed to distract her enough that she only said, "He did?" before his comment sunk in. "Sirius, Teddy is only eight months old. There's no way he asked for me."

"Sure he did," he said, tugging her robe off her shoulder. "He pointed at me and said 'lululululu' I think it's clear he was wondering where you were."

Lucy laughed and used his hair to pull his head up. "Anything else?"

"Tonks has some things to tell you, but she'd rather do that herself. And she sent a picture along but I'm not showing that to you now as we only have so much time before Dinah returns," he said, returning to what he was doing before she pulled his hair.

Lucy moaned before she tapped his shoulder, "I think we'll be more comfortable over there, under the mistletoe."

He reluctantly looked over to where she was pointing, "Ah, the location of our first kiss. Perhaps this time we can finish what we started. What I would have tried very hard to finish if we hadn't had an audience watching."

Lucy smiled; "That's the idea."

Dinah apparated back into her Grimmauld Place bedroom to find that Sirius and Lucy had moved Severus's things from his room into hers. Since he wasn't coming back for any nights they must have figured they could start getting it ready for their other guests, or something. She sighed and placed the envelope with the gift certificate she had purchased on the nightstand. It seemed like such an insignificant, impersonal gift now. She felt detached from it. But hopefully he liked it. Anyone in a normal relationship would have gotten back at him by not getting him anything, she thought with a grin. But they were definitely not in a normal relationship.

She wandered downstairs to look for Lucy and Sirius. She didn't notice them in the hallway or the main room, and ended up heading into the kitchen.

She walked into the kitchen, seeing Sirius by himself. He hadn't noticed her come in and when she looked down to see what he was staring so intently at she saw him holding a silver ring with a single emerald on it. When he looked up and saw her he quickly hid the ring in his fist. "Oh, hi. I didn't hear you come in. Lucy's upstairs…napping."

Dinah nodded, but the ring had distracted her. It had been lovely, but green wasn't the color of an engagement ring. So she wasn't sure why he was hiding it. "Is that a gift for Lucy?" she asked, nodding her head at his closed hand.

"Yes…and no. I mean it's hers if she says yes," he seemed nervous and wasn't making much sense. Maybe it was more than a gift after all. "Lucy's got this thing about heirlooms and tradition. She doesn't like that I could easily chuck pretty much everything in this house without a problem. This is not my mother's ring, hers was extremely ugly. This is a family ring though, and it's one I actually like. What do you think?" he said, finally unclenching his fist and handing her the ring.

She took the ring into her hands and examined it. On closer inspection, it was even lovelier than from a distance. Its design was simple but it shined and shimmered in the light. Its surfaces were clean and unscratched. The emerald was perfectly cut and not too small or too large in its basic setting. "It's lovely," she murmured, "I'm sure Lucy will accept it. Why wouldn't she?"

He shrugged, "I suppose it's just general nerves. I can remember James going through the same thing. I don't know if Remus did or not. I suppose once he got over the age difference it wasn't so bad for him," he paused and seemed to collect himself a bit. "I guess I'm worried she'll think it's too soon. She's still trying to deal with her guilt about not being here when I…died and there's the whole separation anxiety thing."

Dinah felt her eyes widen. "Then it really is...? I mean this is a – it's green but it's...?" she couldn't seem to finish her sentence.

Sirius smirked, "Yes, yes it is. Like I said Lu's big on tradition and while this is not the Black family engagement ring, it is a Black family ring. That's why it's silver with an emerald; Slytherin colors, you know."

"Oh!" Dinah gasped, "I'm sorry. I guess I'm slow. I mean it..." she paused and smiled when it finally hit her, "Sirius, this is going to make Lucy so happy."

"I hope so. I haven't talked to her father about it but then she doesn't talk to her father so I don't think she'll care."

"Hmm," Dinah agreed, "From what I heard about him, yes, I don't think that would matter much."

"I was thinking about wrapping it up for Christmas but that seems a little overdone. Besides, she's pointed out to me on more than one occasion a proposal scene in a book and said, 'See, now, you can't propose to a girl in front of everyone, whether or not she knows them. It doesn't give her a chance to say no.' So I don't know…when. You're a woman. What do you think?"

Dinah grinned at his rather obvious statement, and then turned thoughtful. "I don't know. If she's pointed it out to you more than once, as a girl, it's pretty obvious she's trying to tell you something. But that also confuses me because I don't know why she would tell you that unless she wasn't sure she was going to say yes. I have a very, very hard time thinking she'll say no, though. I mean, but you know her better than I do."

"I don't think she'll say no. I just—I'm not sure how to go about this. I never really had the desire to be married and then in Azkaban…well it would've been rather odd to want to marry anything in there. Every time I think I've got a plan it seems like it's been done a million times before…"

"Ah, so maybe," an idea occurred to Dinah, "Maybe by showing you that she was really trying to hint that she wanted to be proposed to in private. Not so she can say no, just because she wants it to be more personal. That said, I don't think she'd care exactly how you go about it as long as it came from the heart."

He nodded, "You could be right. Women are such odd creatures," Sirius took back the ring she held out to him; "I suppose there's really no rush about it though. Especially now that I've got it properly sized. By the way, I'm sure she's noticed it's missing, but she hasn't been frantically searching for her mother's ring, has she? I didn't want to take it but she's got such small fingers there's no way this one would have fit and I knew her mother's did…"

"Ah, so that's where it went," Dinah grinned, "No, she hasn't been frantic. She's mentioned it a couple of times and I don't think she's happy but I don't think it's been missing long enough for her to be too worried about it. She just assumes she must have misplaced it."

"Good," he said and dropped the ring into the now infamous wand case sitting on the table. He looked back at Dinah, "Lu sort of hated this present so she's not likely to look in here. She'll deny it if you say anything to her, but she's almost as bad as the twins with presents. I try not to keep things wrapped up lying around." He grinned, "I suppose I should go to the store if we want to eat tonight. Is there anything in particular you want me to pick up?"

Dinah thought about it. She felt kind of bad for eating half the bag of tortilla crisps; "Well, you might need to get some more tortilla crisps, as I ate a lot of them. Other than that I don't have any specific requests. I'm not picky, so I'm happy with whatever you serve me. Er," she paused. She still had mixed feelings about Sirius, because of the things he had done to Severus in the past. But Lucy was right; he was basically a good person. So she would let that issue go for now. Yet somehow she knew eventually they'd have to face it. "Thanks for not minding me sticking around even with Severus gone."

"No problem. It's not you I have a problem with," he said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. "Anyway, Lucy's up in our room. You can go wake her up if you want or I can do it on my way out. Oh, we put…Severus's things in your room. The twins stayed in his last time they were here and must have left one of their experiments in there and it went off. There was stuff oozing out from under the door when we walked past. Lu tried to clean his stuff up as best she could."

She decided to ignore his bitter tone for now. The idea of an experiment going off in that room was rather amusing, anyway, "Uh, no problem." She stifled a giggle, "I'm sure we'll be leaving tomorrow anyway, so it's okay that I keep them with me. I'll go up and wake Lucy."

He nodded to acknowledge her leaving and she walked upstairs, her steps slowing down as she made it to the second set. She hadn't been thinking about it, but she was heading to that room where she had seen Severus find Lily's letter in the pensieve. She wondered if it would look the same as it did then. And worse, would it feel the same?

It was probably best to just face the issue down rather than running back and asking Sirius to go wake Lucy up. So she knocked lightly on the door.

An indistinct mumbling came from inside and then nothing. Dinah tried knocking again.

This time she heard what she thought was a growl. The door was yanked open and Lucy appeared.

"What are…oh! Dinah," she quickly pulled the robe she was wearing closed; "Sorry I didn't realize it was you. Do you need something?"

Dinah flushed, extremely embarrassed. "I'll have to thank Sirius for warning me about this," she muttered.

Lucy's face was about as red as her hair, "Sorry. I don't normally sleep like this…Do you want to come in? It'll only take me a minute to change and there's a screen in case you're worried," she smiled.

"Er, sure," she walked in, "Sirius suggested that I come and wake you. I hope you don't mind."

"No, it's fine," she went behind a screen made of dark wood with red fabric panels, "I don't normally sleep in the middle of the day. It's only because we….well never mind. How'd the shopping trip go?"

"I figured you 'well never mind-ed'," Dinah teased, "And the shopping trip went well. I got the gift certificate. A six-Galleon one. That should be enough for four small books or two large ones, depending on what he wants to get."

Lucy came out fully clothed with her hair put up, "That's good. Much better than that dusty, smelly, old, used one I'm more or less re-gifting," she said smiling. "I just have to make the bed then we can go down. I'm glad this is the first room I insisted on re-doing completely. I mean I like green and all but I think it's overkill when that's pretty much the only color in the house. Not to mention the wall paper was starting to come off the walls, but that's going on through the whole house so you probably noticed."

Dinah smiled, realizing that Lucy's dress had distracted her from looking around the room. Or maybe it was because the room looked so different now that she didn't think to look. Anyway, it was different. Very different. The colors had been changed and everything had been moved around. The single bed on the left wall was replaced by a king-sized bed on the back wall. The floor had been carpeted, the walls redone... it might as well not have been the same room at all. It was quite a relief, actually. Severus could probably have come in too and it wouldn't have affected him. "Believe me, I think the changes are all for the better. It's a lovely room."

"Thank you. Sirius told you about Severus's room, right?"

She nodded, "Yes. It must be interesting having such tricksters in the family."

Lucy laughed, "Interesting is one way to put it. Opening that joke shop of theirs was the best thing they ever did, I think. They bought Zonko's in Hogsmeade a month or so ago and have been busy re-doing the shop. I'm sure the students will love it when it opens. I have mixed feelings myself, being one of the professors who will have to deal with their jokes and all."

"Well, hopefully it isn't too much worse than what the students already use from Zonko's. Sirius says he's going out grocery shopping. Were you planning to do dinner after he got back then?"

"Oh, good he broke down first. Yeah, we can do dinner when he gets back. If you're hungry that is. We can have a low-key evening if you want. We do have a wizard's chess set but like I said earlier, it bites."

"What do you think about me apparating home really quick and bringing back some Muggle board games? Chess would be fun, but if the set bites..."

"That sounds fun! You'll probably beat us soundly but it should make for an interesting night. Especially if we find any more surprises from Fred and George. Oh, I meant to gives these back to you earlier," she handed Dinah the clothes she had borrowed the other day.

"Oh, thanks," she took them back. "Did you like them? Muggle clothes are different, but comfortable." She didn't tell Lucy that she had picked up an outfit for her while out shopping. She had also grabbed something for Sirius to go with the outfit she had already bought for him. It wouldn't be right not to have him open something on Christmas. Severus would probably be annoyed, though.

"They were comfortable," she agreed. "Sirius liked them, too. He couldn't keep his eyes off my butt if you didn't notice."

Dinah laughed, "Blue jeans are a bit more fitting than robes, it's true. Well, then I'll go get some games. I'll meet you down in the kitchen?"

"Sounds good. Once Sirius gets back we'll start making dinner so we don't have to wait too long to eat."

"Okay. I'll see you shortly." She apparated from the house for the second time that day.