Sirius Black had been alone in the coffee bar near Notting Hill Gate for about an hour. He had enchanted a coffee stirrer, which was counting the bags of ground Kona coffee directed by his wand for the monthly inventory. How it was that Sirius Black, a wizard of some renown, found himself working as a night-shift manager of a muggle coffee bar was an interesting story indeed.

Sirius, once the most notorious prisoner to escape Azkaban, had reclaimed some measure of his stature within the wizarding community with his daring exploits against the Death Eaters during Lord Voldemort's second reign of terror. But even with his work against Voldemort's followers during those dark years, many in the wizarding community remained deeply distrustful of him. Following his final victory over Voldemort four years ago, Harry Potter and several select other wizards who were privy to the truth about Black's past had persuaded the Ministry of Magic that Black had, in fact, been innocent of all the crimes for which he had been imprisoned in Azkaban. Although the Ministry lacked the evidence to officially drop the charges and clear Black's name, it agreed that if Black generally avoided the wizarding world, it would not commit any real resources toward capturing him.

Sirius accepted life as a muggle, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. However, he didn't exactly steer completely clear of the wizarding world. Harry, Sirius' godson, had recognised immediately that Sirius could be useful as a regulator, a free- lance witch or wizard who seeks out and fights the dark forces, contracting out services to various organisations. And while Sirius did enjoy his continuing contact with the wizarding world through his regulator services (and had always enjoyed the fights against the dark forces), the work in truth didn't pay particularly well. He needed to eat, and he preferred his flat in London to the caves he'd from time to time inhabited since his escape from Azkaban. So, for now he used his middle name, Ian, and had taken this job of managing a coffee bar. He worked the night shift, which brought him into contact with a relatively small segment of the public and left his daytime hours free for his regulator work.

As he directed his wand through the coffee inventory, he ruminated about one of his current projects for Harry's department in the Intelligence Division of the International Federation of Wizards. The Ministry of Magic had received several reports of muggles obtaining illegal potions, and while these potions had so far been sold for seemingly harmless purposes (beauty potions, love potions and the like), Ministry officials were concerned that the suspected circle of dark wizards might soon sell more dangerous items. Although the matter seemingly would have fallen within the jurisdiction of the Ministry's aurors, the I.D. had become involved because the suspected circle was comprised of wizards of varying nationalities and because they were selling these illegal brews in a number of different countries.

While investigating earlier in the week, he and Harry had caught several of the suspected wizards by surprise as they sold some of the illegal potions to muggles in a Singapore market stall. Before either of them could react, these wizards had landed some well-chosen blows against Harry. One of them had quickly uttered a Vulnero curse, inflicting a large cut across the side of Harry's face. Little did the thugs know that roughing up Harry was a sure way to ignite his godfather's hair-trigger temper. Despite the suspects' initial advantage, they were soon overpowered and had been taken into Detention at the I.D. headquarters for further questioning. Sirius hoped Harry would soon have a report from the interrogation.

Sirius' thoughts were interrupted as a well-dressed woman came in, folding up her brolly as she walked towards the counter. She asked for a hazelnut coffee. He slid the wand under the counter and began preparing her order. As he set out the cup and saucer, he glanced over at her again.

The woman had taken a table near the window and had bent over the leather briefcase beside her chair, flipping through the contents. Pushing some of her dark hair out of her eyes, she pulled out a stack of clipped documents. While she wasn't stunningly beautiful, she was certainly intriguing. "Quite attractive, in an interesting sort of way," he thought to himself as he poured the coffee. He tried to focus his thoughts back to the inventory problem and his work with Harry. He certainly didn't have any interest in engaging in conversation with a muggle customer.

As he set her coffee down, he remarked that he'd never seen her in here before. He could see that she had already focused her attention on the documents spread on the table in front of her, and she looked quite irritated when she looked up at him.

"I got off the Tube one stop early by mistake," she said with a bit of an edge in her voice, but her tone softened as she went on. "I thought I'd walk home rather than waiting for another train," she sighed. "Then I saw this place and decided a dose of caffeine might be a good idea with the pile of work I've left to do yet."

"It's awfully late to still be working," he commented dryly as he tried to remember the last time he'd found a woman this interesting. "But, my, you're out of practice at this game old chap," he couldn't help thinking ruefully. She'd draped her raincoat over the back of her chair and had looked down to wipe some dribbles of rain off her tweed pantsuit.

"Bloody Americans - no concept of the difference in time zones. It's late in New York now too, but have they gone home to dinner and their families? No!" She picked up her coffee and looked up at him. He thought he caught the faintest twinkle of interest in her blue eyes. "They want my comments on all this today," she swept her hand over the stack of documents on the table. "Today! It's tomorrow in my time zone!"

"Who's 'they'?" he asked

"Lawyers. The lawyers for the company my client is purchasing," she went on as she sipped her coffee and met his gaze.

"Lawyer," he thought. "Ought not to get anywhere near her!" But still he couldn't help it; his eyes kept glancing in her direction. "What the devil did you say all that for? You were not going to strike up a conversation with her!" he reminded himself sternly and resolving to move back to the counter. He couldn't stop thinking about her eyes. They were the bluest eyes he had ever seen. "So I should refrain from telling you the joke I heard yesterday about the gang of robbers who broke into a lawyer's office and . . .."

"And ended up with less money than they started out with? My grocer told me that one last week." This time he was sure her eyes were smiling at him. He wondered what in the world she would think of the fact that he was a wizard. Dating muggles was a bit dicey in the best of circumstances. His status as an ostracized wizard complicated matters so much it made his head hurt to think about it. Why on earth was he even thinking about dating at all? He hadn't allowed himself the luxury of thinking about women at all since before Azkaban.

He decided to leave her in peace and went back to plotting different ways to hurt the thug that had attacked Harry. This drill had, for some reason, the effect of calming him down when his anger got the better of him. If he could think through all the ways to hurt a wizard, he might not want to kill them as badly. He'd start by running through the various violent physical methods of destruction that he might use, then move on to the more cunning magical curses, then slowly wade into the poisons, potions, and gaseous methods of eliminating his foe. He of course favored the violent physical methods, but realised he was on very thin ice with the wizarding authorities as it was.

 He had been unconsciously fiddling with his wand as he counted the bags of Mocha Horneblende. As absorbed as his customer seemed to be in her reading material, he looked up to find her staring at him over the rim of the coffee cup. "That's some coffee stirrer," she commented.

Black looked down to find his fingers had been fiddling with his wand on the counter. "Oh, this?. . . Actually some kid left it in here earlier. Looks a bit like a magic wand, doesn't it?" "Criminey, you better watch yourself!" he thought to himself. "The last thing you need is to actually be caught practising magic in front of some muggle. A solicitor muggle at that."

"A magic wand?" she repeated as though the stuff of fairy tales rarely entered her conscious thoughts these days.

"Yeah, you know, hocus pocus and all that," he said weakly. Changing the subject quickly and without much thought, he asked her if she'd been to the new Italian restaurant around the corner.

She shook her head and began gathering her documents up. "Brilliant Black. Now she thinks you were chatting her up," he thought.

She was slipping into her raincoat as she walked over to him at the counter. "Well, Mr. . . ."

"Black," he said quickly.

"Mr. Black - as enjoyable as this conversation has been, I'm afraid I'd better get home and pore over these documents so I can fax them out and get some rest. What do I owe you for the coffee?"

He glanced at her ticket. "Er . . .that'll be one pound, fifteen pence."

Their eyes met as she handed him the money. As she finally cut her eyes away and picked up her briefcase to leave, he said, "Hope those documents don't keep you up all night." She smiled and left.

"Good. She's gone," he thought. "You don't need that kind of distraction. Not now." A distraction it was, however. She and her eyes kept creeping into his thoughts. What are those eyes doing here? Go away. I'm thinking of other things here. But they are very nice eyes. And the rest of the package was quite nice as well. WHAT? Yeah, but she actually seemed quite pleasant too. No she didn't, she practically told you to bugger off, but in a pleasant way. My, those eyes were blue."

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Later that morning Sirius was getting home from an otherwise very long and very boring night at the coffee bar. Yawning with fatigue, he checked his telephone messages. He still wasn't entirely used to this muggle contraption, but he needed to keep up appearances in this muggle life. The first message was a reminder that his rent payment was overdue, and the second was his boss asking him to place an order for more napkins, coffee stirrers and similar items during his next shift.

As he relaxed at his small kitchen table, he smiled while the third message played. It was from Harry, who had some new information on the whereabouts of a wizard he wanted Sirius to check out. He always liked hearing Harry's voice as it reminded him so much of James, Harry's father and Sirius' best friend from his schooldays at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He reached for a quill and scribbled down the address Harry was leaving on the machine. Harry had received information that this wizard named Sloan Peregrine lived in a flat on Old Montague Street. "East End," Black mused to himself thoughtfully. He knew many of the witches and wizards in the dark arts community resided in the East End, and surveillance for Harry had led him to that part of London many times before. Harry had suggested that they meet up at a neighbourhood pub on Friday evening so they could discuss this lead and some other matters in more detail.

Still dark and very handsome, Sirius was not nearly so gaunt as when he'd broken out of Azkaban eight years ago. He kept his black hair short and wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was eight years older than the man in the wanted posters that still hung in the muggle post offices. But who ever looked at those anyway? He had gradually stopped worrying so much that he would be recognised and taken in by the muggle police. He did continue to long for an eventual return to a full-fledged wizarding life, even though he knew that his chances of clearing his name were quite low indeed.

Sirius relived the scene in his head virtually every day - he had waited so many years for that moment. His primary goal in those dark days had been the capture of Wormtail, the old friend that had been responsible for his incarceration in Azkaban. Wormtail had eluded Sirius once more and joined forces with Voldemort; however, unfortunately for both Sirius and Wormtail, Wormtail outlived his usefulness to the Dark Lord before Sirius could get his hands on his old friend.

Voldemort had been holding court in a convenient graveyard once again. Sirius was observing these events in his own animagus form, a large bear-like black dog that resembled one of the legendary graveyard grims. Voldemort and the Death Eaters were planning their final assault on Hogwarts and on Harry in particular. It seemed Voldemort had recently been informed of Wormtail's life debt to Harry Potter, a small detail that Wormtail had deliberately failed to mention when he returned to Voldemort those many years ago.

Although his dreams had always revolved around taking his own revenge against his traitorous friend, Sirius knew he would be just as content to have Voldemort (or anyone) finish the job. Just so long as he could retrieve the body . . . and, at long last, have proof of his innocence. Sirius had assumed Voldemort would use the Avra Kadrava curse and that he need only wait for the Death Eaters to abandon the scene and he could retrieve Wormtail's body. He was already pondering where he should apparate once he had the body.

But Voldemort had a different fate in mind for the hapless Wormtail. As Sirius looked on from the shadows, Voldemort raised his wand and shouted the curse Conflagratum that ignited Wormtail instantaneously. His screams pierced the night sky for a few brief seconds, and within minutes, all that remained of Peter Pettigrew was a small pile of ashes, and a few small fragments of bone. Although shocked and furious, Sirius knew there was nothing he could do. Now there was no one to refute the allegations that he had betrayed his best friends and then murdered 12 people in cold blood. No one to clear his name.

Sitting at his kitchen table, Sirius shook his head furiously as he recalled his helplessness as he had watched that scene. "Don't know why you continue to torture yourself with that memory. Nothing you could have done differently," he muttered to himself as he took his breakfast dishes to the sink. He pointed his wand at them, and after they'd washed and rinsed themselves, they jumped from the sink to the drying rack on the counter.

Later that afternoon, Sirius headed off to check on Harry's lead over in the East End. This particular project seemed almost drearily routine. Harry had heard rumblings that a wizard by the name of Sloan Peregrine was causing trouble with the muggles in the area. But since there wasn't any dark magic involved, the matter couldn't be handled officially by Harry's department. Sirius arrived at the address Harry had provided. The house was dilapidated but was apparently occupied given the overflowing dustbins to the left of the house. He knocked at the front door and waited a few moments for any sign of movement. Hearing none, he threw a quick glance behind him and moved around toward the back of the house. There was a small drive on the left side of the house, which led to a small outbuilding, perhaps a potting shed, and a back alleyway. The backyard was fenced, and he could see a porch on the back of the house and a small herb garden in the backyard. Sirius climbed over the back fence and approached the quiet house.

He pulled his wand from the pocket of his jeans and muttered "Alohomora."

Sirius entered the house, and began stealthily looking for anything that could implicate Mr. Peregrine in illegal activity. There were some papers on the kitchen table that contained the name Sloan Peregrine, which confirmed the tip Harry had given him. He turned the corner and entered the main living area. "Ugh, what a mess," he thought. He could tell by the CDs and pizza boxes that the owner of this house must be closer to Harry's age than his own. Laundry and dirty dishes were stacked everywhere. "How could any self- respecting wizard live like this? After all, how long would it take to mutter a couple of housekeeping charms and straighten this place up?" Sirius wondered to himself as he wandered around. Then he nearly laughed out loud as he realised that he sounded like his father: "I must be getting old!"

He continued on up to the second floor, and in what looked like a spare bedroom Sirius saw all the trappings of someone very well-equipped in the divining arts. There was a table with a large crystal ball, quite a number of Tarot card decks, a large tea pot, a card that read E²: The Enchanted Eye (come to See with us), and a whole bookcase full of Divination texts. As Sirius looked around the room, he rolled his eyes and thought "not another one of these loons." He finished looking around and left through the back door, remembering to re-lock it. He made his way back to his flat, thinking that Harry was getting awfully worked up about nothing more than a crystal-gazing crackpot.

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Hermione Granger was trudging up the four flights of stairs to the flat she shared with Harry, a heavy book bag slung over her shoulder. Next week would mark the beginning of final examinations in her graduate program in Charms at the Stonehenge Center for Advanced Studies in Witchcraft and Wizardry, which was the most prestigious program of its kind in Britain and one of the best in the world. Hermione had earned top marks in her class each year at Hogwarts and had, in her final and seventh year there, received the Order of Golden Unicorn, an honour reserved for a highly select group of Hogwarts students. The standards for achieving the Order of Golden Unicorn were so high that it went unawarded many years.

She had been accepted into a similar program at the world's most exclusive center for higher learning in the wizard world, the Crucible Coven in America, but, in the end, she had rejected the offer. The program in Massachusetts was a five-year program that only accepted 13 witches and wizards per year. Although it was one of the most difficult decisions she'd ever made, Hermione had known she simply couldn't be away from home for that long. Ron's death was still a fresh memory when she was evaluating her choices at the end of their seventh year at Hogwarts, and she knew that the prospect of leaving Harry behind had been perhaps one of her primary motivations in rejecting the Crucible's program. Harry had urged her over and over to reconsider, promising to visit frequently. But she sensed he'd been secretly relieved when she decided to enter the program at Stonehenge in London instead.

They'd moved into this flat in Shepherd's Bush within a month after finishing their seventh year and had been here for nearly four years now. It was a slog up to the top floor of the building, but it did have a wonderful roof garden. The flat itself was simple, consisting of a small living area, an even smaller kitchen and eating nook, two tiny bedrooms and the one bathroom they'd shared without too much trouble. They didn't have much in the way of furnishings as Hermione was in graduate school and Harry's money was still tied up in investments until he was 25. They'd opted for the neighbourhood as it suited their budgets at the time, but they'd grown quite fond of it over the years. They'd found a very good curry place just around the corner, and they often stopped off at the pub just two blocks down from their building.

She climbed the final flight of stairs and rounded the corner to the narrow hallway. She was so absorbed in thinking about all the revising she needed to do between now and next week that she didn't notice Rufus sitting in the hallway in front of their door until she was right in front of him. "Oh, Rufus! Sorry - I didn't see you," she exclaimed. "I'm afraid I was in another world." "Sorry," she repeated absentmindedly, hugging him quickly as he stood up. "Bugger, what's he doing here," she thought as began fumbling in her book bag for her wand to open the door. She never could seem to keep track of her keys.

"We were supposed to meet for lunch, don't you remember?"

"Lunch? Lunch . . .today's not Tuesday, is it?" Hermione had opened the door and they'd stepped into the living area. She threw her book bag in an armchair by the door and walked over to open up the front window. "Great weather. Shame I'm not enjoying any of it with all this revising."

"Actually it is Tuesday," Rufus answered as he looked around nervously for any signs of her famous roommate.

Hermione, who had planned to fix herself a cup of tea and settle in for an afternoon of revising, was not particularly in the mood for socializing. Her mood softened, however, when she saw the slightly hurt expression on Rufus' face. She and Rufus had been dating for about six months now. He was a few years older and was working as a herbologist with Floranica, the premier provider of magical plant life. Tuesdays were his usual day off, and now that she thought of it, she did remember they'd made plans for lunch since she had told him she'd be busy with exam preparations and unable to make their usual Tuesday evening plans.

"I'm sorry, Rufus. I must have completely lost track of time in the library this morning, and honestly, I really didn't even quite realise that it's Tuesday. I'm feeling quite unprepared for these examinations if you want to know the truth." She smiled apologetically at him, as he leaned over to kiss her.

"That's okay, honey. We'll be spending all of tomorrow together at my grandmother's birthday celebration in Dover anyway," he answered, a bit relieved that Harry did not seem to be home at the moment. He reached out for one of her hands. "By the way, did you want to take the 9:45 train in the morning from Victoria? If you'd rather cram in some revising in the morning instead, there's a 11:45 train out of Charing Cross which will still get us there in time for the lunch."

"Your grandmother's party is tomorrow?" Hermione looked up in surprise. "But tomorrow is June 3^rd."

Rufus eyed her warily, apparently sensing that tomorrow's plans were looking less certain. "Yes, tomorrow's the third. Is there something special about the third?"

"Well, yes. Don't you remember?" Hermione drew her hand away from his and walked over to stand at the window. "Our friend Ron died on that day five years ago. Harry and I always spend the day together . . . and with Ron's family. We talked about that - I know we did."

"But, everyone's looking forward to meeting you," he said firmly. "And I took the day off specially and everything. We talked about this just last week in fact."

"I'm sorry! I must not have made the connection that we were talking about the 3^rd. I've been so completely overwhelmed with work and revising . . . I just didn't focus. I'm sorry. You'll make my apologies to your family, won't you?" She walked into the kitchen and busied herself with beginning to make a pot of tea.

"I know. What if we take the early train in the morning and then we just come back here by late afternoon. You and, . . .er . . . Harry, can spend the evening together, and we can still do my gram's party," Rufus said as he walked into the kitchen area and reached for cups and saucers off the drying rack.

"Oh. I really wish we could do that, but Harry and I are meeting the Weasley family in Chudley at noon to see the Chudley Quidditch match and then going back to their house for dinner. They were Ron's favourite team -- the Chudley Cannons that is. He had his room completely papered in Chudley Cannon posters. And I can't count the number of times Harry and I found him gazing longingly at Cannons robes and specialty items in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies when we would visit Diagon Alley." She knew she was beginning to prattle, but she could see from his expression that Rufus was quite angry.

"I should have known. It's always about Harry in the end, isn't it?" Rufus slammed the saucers down hard on the table. "Why don't you tell me what's really going on?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hermione retorted as she rummaged in the cabinet for tea bags.

"Harry. You and Harry!"

"We've been over this before. Several times before if I remember correctly," she said sharply. She was setting out the sugar bowl and taking cream out of the icebox.

"Well, let's just say I'm not convinced."

She glared at him. "Rufus, I've told you over and over. There is not the slightest bit of romantic interest between Harry and I! And I can't believe you'd accuse me of something like that in this case. We're spending the day together to mourn the death of our mutual best friend. Plus, I dated Ron at Hogwarts! Not Harry!"

"Well, it's been awhile since Hogwarts, hasn't it? And here you've been living in close quarters with the dashing Mr. Potter, world savior and all, all that time!" he glanced around the small, cramped flat significantly. "What do you suppose most people think about your relationship?!" His voice was definitely raised at this point.

"I have no idea what most people think! But if they think there's a romantic relationship between Harry and I, then they're dead wrong!" She was shaking with anger to the point that tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. "This is so completely off-base Rufus. And, I cannot believe you'd bring this up again right now. I've got so much pressure in my studies with exams next week! How can you do this to me?"

"Hermione, don't you see? If there's a choice to be made, it's always made in favour of Harry. Always!" Rufus yelled. He saw the tears running down her face and lowered his voice. "If this death day anniversary was so at the forefront of your thoughts, then why in the hell didn't you tell me about it when we were making plans to go to Dover tomorrow?"

"I told you already. I must have had the dates all mixed up in my head. Look, Rufus, this is just not the time for a big scene about Harry. I've got too many other things on my mind. Maybe we should just . . . see each other later this week."

He stared at her and seemed about to say something more when they both heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the hallway outside the door. Rufus glanced at the door and grabbed his rucksack off the counter. Harry came in seconds later with a sack of groceries. Rufus brushed angrily past him, ignoring Harry's greeting.

"What's with him?" Harry asked as he walked into the kitchen with the bag. He looked carefully at Hermione's face, but she turned away quickly. "Nothing," she muttered. "Do you want some tea? I've got some ready."

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