A/N: I'm sooo sorry for the long wait for this chapter. It's been an entire month! But I was focusing more on ending the school year, hence my absence. I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed and read the story so far, especially since I only have two chapters uploaded, ha ha.

IMPORTANT QUESTION! How long should I make this story? Because I could easily wrap it up in about 5 or 6 chapters and make it a short story...or I can go for an extended version which looks like will be about 20 chapters long...not really sure which route I wanna go yet!

Anyways, thank you for reading and reviews would be lovely~

Chapter Three

In Which She Meets the Man

The house was quiet today. Everyone in the Order was out, even the Weasley family had something to do elsewhere today. Sirius sighed and checked the time again: fifteen minutes after three. He was sitting by his bedroom window. For some reason he felt anxious to see the girl, Arabella, walk by. He hadn't seen her in three days and wondered if something happened to her. Where was she? Where was Arabella?

He heard a noise and sighed yet again. "Buckbeak." He left his room and went into his mother's to see if there was something wrong with the loveable beast. When he entered, he could see a feather mass of gray on the king sized mattress. It rose and fell slowly; Buckbeak was sleeping. Then where did the noise come from?

Sirius shrugged it off figuring that it must have been one of the magical pests that had made the house their home. Molly had been going on and on about how this place was practically inhabitable for humans. Sometimes Sirius wished he could…thump, thump, thump. Sirius turned around to face the door. Was it footsteps he heard? He was unsure, but when he heard a shriek of terror he sprinted out of the room.

As he approached the stairway, he noticed a stranger talking to herself. "Nothing will go wrong…" She started, but her voice trailed off when his hand snapped out to grab her wrist and whip her around. For a moment he found himself speechless. The intruder was none other than Arabella Roland.

Sirius was in a momentary state of shock. For one he felt happy that Arabella, the girl he had only been able to watch from afar, was finally standing before him, but he felt more so confused than anything. "How did you get in here?"

"Uh…uh…I" Arabella's voice seemed to be caught in her throat.

"How did you get in here?" He demanded again, then somewhere in the house a grandfather clock chimed. "Damn…" He started pulling her up the stairs.

She tried her best to resist, but it was to no avail. "Let go!"

"The others will return at any moment. If they find you…"

The sound of an opening door could be heard from where the two of them stood. A voice called out. "Sirius!"

Sirius broke out into a run, now dragging poor Arabella behind him. She struggled to keep up with him and nearly fell over when he threw her into a room. "Hide yourself and don't open the door for anyone." He shut the door close, with a little more force than necessary, before heading downstairs. She could still hear his voice as he moved farther away. "I see you're all back…" She heard other voices as well, but they seemed to blur together. She surveyed the dark room. It smelled as if an animal lived in here; she didn't expect that man to be so unhygienic.

Her hands were shaking and she made her way towards the large bed to sit, so that she could calm herself down a bit. As she approached the bed, she noticed there was a big lump of gray feathers on it. Strange, so tentatively she reached her hand out to touch it. "No! Arabella don't touch it!" Arabella drew her hand back quickly and whipped her head around to see Tamesis and Linore. Her face began to turn red. "Where in the world were you two?"

"I'm sorry Arabella, but…" Tamesis started, but Arabella didn't want to hear it.

"Tamesis, you left me! Weren't you supposed to protect me? You could have used your magic against that man and…."

"Don't blame me for what happened! You're the one who decided to come here. You wanted to meet him." Tamesis exploded.

"But…"

Tamesis drew a breath and began to explain in a more calm tone. "I'm sorry Arabella, but when the man grabbed you so suddenly…I couldn't help but worry about Linore. What if the man somehow found her as well? So I went in search for her."

"I'm sorry Arabella," Linore murmured. "While I was scouting the house, I flew into a cupboard. I wanted to hurry, so I could go back to you and Tamesis, but I didn't watch where I was going. Before I knew it, a sort of bowl fell and trapped me beneath it."

Arabella looked from Tamesis to Linore, before looking ashamedly down into her lap. "I'm so sorry you two; it's just that I'm scared…"

Linore now stood on Arabella's right shoulder and patted Arabella's head, trying to reassure her. "Everything will be okay. The man isn't that bad; he's just trying to hide you from the others. He's protecting you."

"I guess...but I don't know…I…"

"I understand you're scared, but please slowly get off the bed." Tamesis interrupted.

"W-why? What's wrong with sitting on the bed?" Arabella asked and a squawking noise answered her. She slowly turned her head and was now face to face with a huge bird with piercing yellow eyes. A yelp escaped from Arabella's lips, as she fell off the bed with a thud. The huge bird rose on the bed and Arabella realized that it wasn't a bird. "What the…what is that?"

"A…hippogriff. Stay calm for me Arabella…it may attack at any second." Tamesis placed his hands together and murmured in his fairy language. Arabella bit the bottom of her lip, so she wouldn't scream again, and began to slowly inch further away from the strange beast. The bird…horse…thing squawked again and began moving towards her. "Tamesis…" She whispered.

Tamesis pulled his hands apart and Arabella found herself surrounded by a black force field once again. The…hippogriff must have sensed it, because it began squawking again. It reared back, trying to break the shield around Arabella.

The door opened.

"Buckbeak!" Sirius rushed passed Arabella and pushed the hippogriff back. "Stay down Buckbeak!" He looked back at Arabella and the door. With a flick of his wand, the door closed and the lock clicked. He returned his attention to Arabella. She sat with her knees drawn to her chest and her eyes were wide with fear. "He won't hurt you." He started, referring to Buckbeak. "You just didn't approach him properly. Come on…" He motioned her to come towards him and Buckbeak. She shook her head. "We won't hurt you." He reassured her, looking her dead in the eye.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Arabella stood up and slowly approached Sirius and Buckbeak. A gasp escaped her lips, when Buckbeak began to move. "There's nothing to worry about! Now, you just need to bow to him, without breaking any eye contact. Can you do that for me?" She bent over obediently and kept her eyes locked on the hippogriff's. To her surprise, the animal bowed back. "Good. He should be alright with you now. You can pet him if you like." Arabella stared back at the man as though he was crazy, but regardless outreached her hand tentatively. Buckbeak pressed his beak against her palm and Arabella couldn't help but smile. "That's better…" Sirius moved towards her, but Arabella quickly moved to the other side of Buckbeak, keeping the gentle beast between her and him. "Great, now you like him more than you like me." Arabella said nothing and kept her hands buried in Buckbeak's feathers.

Sirius sighed and his gaze shifted to the ground. A certain sketchbook caught his eye. He picked it up. "Is this yours?" Arabella nodded in response.

He opened the book and, upon no protests from Arabella, proceeded to examine the sketches within it. For the most part, the contents were very good sketches of normal everyday things: a tree, a bus stop, a café, a couple sitting together on a bench… "Is this the park a couple minutes away from here?" He asked, glancing up at her. She nodded and he looked down at the book in his lap again. "I used to go there often as a child." He commented nonchalantly, but the comment intrigued her. He sounded as though…he hadn't been outside in a while. Was he a sort of recluse or something?

Sirius continued to flip through the pages when he came across something interesting. A page with the sketches of what looked to be two fairies; one was male and the other female, dark and light. The next page, to his disbelief, was the sketch of a bowtruckle. On the next page, it was an owl carrying post. On another page, it was the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron from the muggle street in London. The next few pages contained the sketches of the house from the outside. Has she always been able to see this house? Finally he came to the more recent sketches. He was utterly speechless because they were sketches of himself. There was no doubt about it. The resemblance was obvious. How did she draw these just now? He spotted the date scribbled in the lower right hand corner. No, they were drawn a couple of days ago. However, he was absolutely sure she had never seen him before. "Is…is this me?" He asked for clarification. The next thing Sirius knew, the book was snatched from his hands. The color red rose to the top of her cheeks. "It is me, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"How did you know what I looked like? Or about the Leaky Cauldron? Or this house? Are you a witch?"

Arabella flinched. "What! N-no I'm not! I-I've always been able to see what other people can't." An uncomfortable silence arose.

"That's strange," was all he had to say. "They are very good otherwise."

"Thank you." Arabella's voice sounded small. "Ummm…who are you exactly?"

"Oh…" He blinked, realizing he never told her his name. "My name is Sirius."

"Sirus." She repeated and didn't fail to notice the lack of a last name. "I think it'd be inappropriate for me to call you by your first name, since we just met."

Sirius gave her a look of disbelief. "I'd rather you just call me Sirius."

A shy smile appeared on her face. "Alright Sirius. My name is Arabella Roland."

"I know." He said immediately, only to wish to cut his tongue off right after he said those two words. "I mean…I knew that you'd have a lovely name. It's nice to meet you Arabella." He quickly covered up. Arabella looked away, looking slightly flustered and Sirius couldn't help but smile at this.

"Um, Sirius…I…um…I want to go home." She said into her lap. This easily wiped the smile off Sirius' face. In that moment he had forgotten that she didn't belong there with him or in his world. She was a muggle, but in that small moment they shared, he secretly wished it wasn't so.

He sighed. "There's a meeting in this house at about 6:30 and everyone will move to the kitchen afterwards for dinner. That'll be when you can leave without being noticed."

Her head snapped up. "That's about three hours from now! Father will be so worried…"

"It'll be fine. I don't plan on hurting you!" Sirius shouted, getting annoyed with the fact she didn't trust him at all. Arabella flinched. "I'm sorry…" She apologized softly.

"You have nothing to apologize about." Sirius said, calming down and cursing himself for shouting. "I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"It's alright…I'm being a bit silly I suppose…"

Silence fell again. Buckbeak squawked and moved from in between them; he was no longer separating the two. She sat upon the bed and he sat beside her. He was very much relieved that she made no movement to stay away from him. "I've wanted to meet you. You see…I've seen you many times walking by the house. Many times you're smiling. Sometimes you're even laughing to yourself. You're a strange girl." She gave him a hurt sort of look, and he barked a laugh. "But strange is different and different is good. I'm glad I've been able to meet you."

Arabella tried to look away, but he wouldn't allow her to. His gray eyes bore into her honey brown ones. "I'm glad to have met you too…" She responded, her voice was no higher than a whisper. She noticed his face moving slowly closer and closer to her own. He was too close, much too close and yet Arabella couldn't bring herself to turn away. The tips of their noses were barely touching...

"Sirius Black! Stop hiding and come down here!" A female voice shouted causing both Arabella and Sirius to jump and separate.

"Who's that?" Arabella asked.

"Molly. She probably wants me to help with the cleaning or something…" Sirius groaned.

"Is she your…is she your wife or…"

Sirius recoiled. "Gods no! How terrible my life would be if she was!" Both stared at each other, before bursting out with laughter at Sirius' response. As their laughter died down, Sirius made his way to leave.

"You'll come back soon right?"

He blinked, slightly surprised at the question. "Of course. Don't leave this room and don't answer the door. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Okay."

He shut the door and headed downstairs to Molly. His heart felt as though it was beating too fast and a tingling sensation was present in his stomach. He shook his head. What was he thinking? He was much too old and she was obviously much too young. Yet, he couldn't help, but wish to go back up to her as soon as possible. Then again, she couldn't stay here. She had to go back home and the next time he'd see her would be from his bedroom window.