HARRY POTTER AND EVERYTHING RELATING TO THAT MAGICAL UNIVERSE BELONG TO JK ROWLING, WARNER BROS, BLOOMSBURY BOOKS ETC. AND I AM VERY LUCKY TO BE ALLOWED TO PLAY WITH IT ALL.

News Hound

A couple of weeks before his eleventh birthday, Billy Weasley cut a picture out of his parents' newspaper. His mother had a screaming temper fit when she saw "that heartless murderer Sirius Black" stuck on the headboard of his bed. She told him that the man was evil, it wasn't a story or a game, good people had died. Then she tore the cutting into tiny pieces and locked herself in the bathroom, sobbing.

The trial was the Prophet's big story that month and there were plenty more photographs to sneak under his mattress. When he went to Hogwarts the next September, Bill attached them to the underside of the lid of his trunk. He used them to scare the other boys in his dorm. They all knew who Black was. He was notorious.

All the wizarding families were mourning someone at that time. Billy used to talk about his uncles when the subject came up. But they were at that age when they divided the world into heroes and baddies for the retelling of the recent past. And the baddies were the most exciting.

The newspaper pieces fell apart as they do, the disintegration speeded up by having to peel them off and hide them before going home every holiday. When Bill emptied out his trunk for the last time after he had left school, he found one crumpled, snarling image into a corner at the bottom. It was only then that he registered how handsome the face was, and wondered if that had been the point all along.

A few years later, he'd found out that Black had been innocent: not a traitor, a murderer, a Death Eater or evil. Then Bill had met him, now they were lovers and Bill had been worrying about him all weekend.

He'd been so disgruntled about being left alone for a couple of days, that Bill had convinced himself that Sirius was going to do something rash. Like going out. If the Ministry caught him, he'd be returned to Azkaban. If the Death Eaters got hold of him - and they'd recognise him as a dog or a man - it would be worse. But if he was unhappy and restless then there was every chance he'd risk a trip outside anyway.

So Bill couldn't wait until evening to check on him. He nipped round to Grimmauld Place in his lunch hour. The important thing was to keep Sirius inside the house.

Bill's weekend had gone badly. He'd had a hard time from his mother for abandoning her for twenty minutes on their Saturday shopping trip so he could go into H.M.V. in Muggle London; that evening, in a nightclub with Fleur, he'd had an argument with a man who'd been chatting her up; Sunday lunch had been a disaster. He had introduced Fleur to his parents and, unexpectedly, his mother had hated her. Part of the point of having a girlfriend was to make the family happy. He'd had half a mind to abort the project altogether.

But Molly did want grandchildren. That was the point. And Fleur was the only woman he'd ever met that he could contemplate marriage with. The priority had to be, therefore, to get his mother to change her mind before Fleur realised that she was detested.

And he had been coping with all that while he had part of his mind here, at Order H.Q., fretting about Sirius. Another part of his mind was working away at how he could get more information out of the goblins. The important thing was not to let them know that he was spying on them.

This morning he had been going over it all in his head while trying to work as efficiently as he could. Because if he lost his job then he wouldn't be able to think about marrying anyone, he'd be no use to the Order and he'd never be able to afford to move out of his parents' house. So, the most important thing was to make sure that none of his other concerns affected his work.

Sirius answered the door looking surprised but pleased.

"I wasn't expecting you until this evening." He lead the way through the hall and into the kitchen.

"I thought I'd bring the music round now. Just see how you are."

"I'm fine," Sirius answered breezily. "It was a good thing you didn't come round Sunday morning …"

"I did say I couldn't!"

"Which was good. Because Andromeda and her family visited."

"Andromeda?"

"My cousin. With her husband, Ted, and their daughter. Tonks. She's in the Order."

Sirius leaned casually against the range. Bill emptied his carrier bag onto the table. "That's nice," he said.

"Yes. It was nice," Sirius replied. Too fast, too harsh.

"Shall I show you how this works?" Bill indicated the Discman. He had half an hour until he needed to be back at his desk.

Sirius lifted one shoulder like he wasn't bothered. The movement pulled the hem of his shirt out of his waistband and revealed a quick flash of white skin.

Bank, girlfriend, Battery Recharging Charm, mother, goblins and Dark wizardry all flew out of Bill's head. The only thing of any importance was tasting that skin.

Bill crossed the kitchen swiftly and ducked his head down in the same movement, pulling at the worn, black material. He sank his mouth onto the warm flesh. It tasted like Sirius had got out of bed to answer the door to him. Bill wrapped his arms round his favourite body and lifted his head up to press his nose into the neck. He inhaled the natural, musky scent.

He found himself mumbling, "I just want to spend the rest of my life in bed with you."

He felt Sirius' arms come round his waist then a hand stroking his buttock. Their bodies pressed into each other - heat, bones, fabric, muscle. Not even a week and already Bill was addicted to this. Actually given his past record, it was just as surprising that they'd been doing it nearly a week and still Bill was addicted to this. He brought his mouth over towards Sirius', the kiss prevented by the other man saying, "But you won't. You'll go back to work for the afternoon and then you'll marry your girlfriend."

"I've got half an hour before I need to get back to Gringotts," Bill answered, ignoring the second half of the statement.

He leaned in and they kissed a slow, plucking kiss.

Afterwards Sirius said, "I suppose this means you won't be round later?"

"I will. I just had to see you."

They were both hard and there wasn't much time. Bill slipped his hand down the front of Sirius' loose-waisted black jeans.

"Floo room," Sirius reminded him.

Bill shot a look over to the fire but his fingers wrapped themselves round the shaft anyway.

"Not like you. We'll get caught," Sirius breathed into his ear.

"Mmm." Bill was agreeing, but he was also responding to the flesh in his grasp while losing the function of coherent speech.

Sirius sighed and spun them into a Side-Along Apparition up to his bed. Before his head had cleared, Bill had unzipped both their flies and they were grinding against each other. Sirius started a kiss, but neither of them could concentrate on what their mouths were doing, so they ended up grunting into each others' mouths as the movement of their hands and hips got faster.

Before his head had cleared from his climax, Bill had cast a tempus. He swore and jumped up, adjusting his clothing while Sirius attempted cleaning spells. They rushed down the stairs, Bill apologizing, promising to be back in a few hours and running his fingers through his now-wild red hair. They were on the last flight of steps and Bill was replacing his hair band when a shadow moved into the hall.

"Is that you, Black?" asked a distinctive, nasal drawl.

Severus Snape swept into view, looking up at them. After a frozen pause, his eyebrow hitched and his mouth formed a silent "Oh".

Sirius said, "We were just uh …"

"Checking on the Hippogryph," Bill completed. "Charlie asked me to."

"Indeed?" The amused tone was obvious.

"What are you doing here, Snivellus?" Sirius spat.

"Special meeting with the Aurors. In the kitchen. Moody, Shacklebolt and Tonks are in there. We were wondering where you'd got to, Black. No sounds of housework, you see."

Bill could hear the laboured breathing behind him as Sirius fought to control his temper and he could see the sneer on Snape's face grow as he looked the two of them over.

"Because we were on the top floor, examining the Hippogryph. Buckbeak," Bill supplied, calmly. "I need to get back to work now before I'm missed, and you'd better get on with your important secret meeting."

He strode purposefully downstairs, heading for the front door. Just as he passed the curtains over Walburga Black's portrait, Snape let out a dry, contemptuous laugh and they flew open.

"Sodomites!" she shrieked, making Bill's skin explode with a scarlet blush, Snape chuckle and Sirius launch a frenzied attack on the canvas.

"You vicious old hag!" he bellowed, pulling at the curtain and smacking her image with the palm of his hand, while she ranted, "Craven pursuers of perverse lusts! Defiling the purity of our blood!"

Bill completed his walk to and out of the front door, with his expression as dead-pan and his head held as high as he could manage, given the fracas in the hallway and the disdain with which Snape was watching him.

There was no point in asking Severus Snape not to tell anyone.