A Stable Spell of Time

"But does he know anything about horses?" I asked.

"What difference does it make whether he does or not?" my cousin retorted. "He knows magic."

"Well, he can't use magic here!" I told them both.

"Actually, he can," Albus Dumbledore replied.

My cousin and I turned to look at Dumbledore. My cousin's eyes flashed with a sort of eagerness that in almost anyone else I would have called magical; but I had a feeling that my own expression would have been forbidding to anyone but Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore's smile was kind, and perhaps a bit pitying, as he continued, "After all, the stables belong to the Old Hall, not the new one."

My cousin and I looked at each other. We knew Dumbledore was right. Although to Gary's and my eyes the Old Hall looked like a ruin, a derelict shell, in Dumbledore's reality the house was still what Gary and I could see only in old paintings--a splendid hodgepodge of Elizabethan-Jacobean domestic architecture, with Dutch and other influences.

The new hall, by contrast, which had inherited the old one's name of Brocklehurst Hall more than two hundred years ago, was hardly a hall in the traditional sense of the word, having served in so many other capacities since the First World War. Of course by now some of those roles had become tragically traditional ones for what were originally intended to be family homes. They had served as hospitals, army headquarters, schools, hotels, tourist centres, and office buildings. At least these roles had kept them standing, and not as ghostly shells of their original stateliness. Brocklehurst Hall now housed the offices of Gary's accountancy firm, Keogh, Bond, and Weasley. Gary and his wife Gemma lived in what was originally the gate lodge.

I lived in the old coachman's house next to the stables, which were neither Elizabethan-Jacobean like the Old Hall nor Victorian like the new one, but Georgian, and which looked to me more like an American college Quad than the stables of an English country house.

Albus Dumbledore was looking at the stables now, and his blue eyes were admiring, appraising. "Lovely," he murmured. "Splendid. Atticus Hutchinson," he said. "Quintus Schreiber."

"I beg your pardon?" Gary sounded polite but confused.

"The architects," said Dumbledore. "Atticus Hutchinson and Quintus Schreiber."

Gary shook his head. "Robert Adam and Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, I think."

Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. "Brilliant as those men were, they were not real wizards, Gary. There was no actual magic in their families, not even among the distant cousins."

He smiled at Gary, and gave me a wink. I knew that Gemma had a second cousin who was a wizard, but although Gemma was also related to me, our connection was so distant that I didn't even know the cousin's name, let alone anything else about him. I did know that Elvis Presley said--or rather sang--that "we're all cousins, that's what I believe," but I certainly didn't know the names of all the other children of Adam and Eve.

I had met one or two members of the family who lived in the Old Hall, but I had never visited them there. We did not get on.

And yet ... I quite liked Albus Dumbledore. He reminded me of my great-grandfather, and my grandmother had told me Dumbledore was a great man even though he terrified her. I had told her I understood. Some of the best riding instructors I had ever ridden with had terrified me.

But now I was an instructor myself, and settled in the quiet English countryside, at home with my two cousins--one distant and one traceably close--and a Pony Club-ful of kids who needed stabling for their horses.

The Brocklehurst Hall stables were in nearly as good condition as the new hall, having been in almost continuous use since they had been built (by whomever). I had twelve good boxes, pasture and paddocks, two regular employees to muck out and feed and turn out, and a rota of keen young girls to help out at weekends and in the evenings after school.

What I did not have was a need for an unqualified wizard who might know less about horses--winged or not--than I knew about Brocklehurst Old Hall.

"I wouldn't want him doing magic here," I told Gary and Dumbledore.

Gary appeared to be at least trying to look relieved. Dumbledore looked more than disappointed. He looked ... sad, I thought. More than sad. He looked ... terrified.

I thought of my grandmother.

And then I thought of the woman who, when I had first come to Brocklehurst Hall, had approached me about running a horse rescue here.

I had taken in four of her most desperate cases, moved not only by the look in her eyes but by the look in the horses' eyes. And funded by Gary and Gemma, whose practice was thriving, whereas my business had not yet really got going.

I turned now from Dumbledore to Gary, and sighed. "You've heard Grandmother's stories, too," I reminded my cousin.

"Yes, I have," he agreed. He glanced at Dumbledore and then turned back to me. "And this time it's different, Elspeth. No one's fighting a dark wizard. This time it's the ministry we're up against. They want to put this man in prison."

This man, Gary said. Not this wizard. Bringing home to me the fact that the man was a human being, just like Gary and me. And just like Dumbledore.

I heaved a sigh and shook my head, and took refuge in a memory of my other grandmother. The one who was not horsey, but who had grown up when horses were as common in the streets of Boston as were motorcars, and who had quoted her grandmother to me on more than one occasion. I repeated her words now to Albus Dumbledore, changing them just a bit to suit the present situation.

"Just so long as he doesn't do magic in my yard and frighten the horses," I said.

Gary laughed, and put a cousinly arm around my shoulders. Dumbledore smiled, his blue eyes twinkling away the terror that had flickered there momentarily. "I'll tell him," he said. "And I'll send him to you this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you both," he said, and shook hands with each of us in turn.

* * * *

The other wizard appeared at teatime.

If I had not with my own eyes seen him appear, I would never have taken him for a wizard. He looked much younger than Albus Dumbledore. He did not have a long grey beard, nor was he wearing a long purple cloak or high-heeled, buckled boots. He did have a five-o'clock shadow, and hair that fell in a black wave to his shoulders, and he was wearing an old donkey jacket, jeans, and a pair of wellies.

It was a good thing for him, I thought, that he hadn't walked up from the station. Wellies are excellent footwear for working around stables, but not for doing much walking.

He had a sleeping bag and a rucksack over one shoulder, but the rucksack did not look as if he had packed it with enough clothes for the weekend, let alone for the unspecified length of time Dumbledore had told Gary and me he might need to stay here.

"Just to lie low for awhile," Dumbledore had said. "To lie doggo, as it were, until we can think what to do with him." Dumbledore had placed a light emphasis on the we, which I had taken to mean that there were at least a few wizards who did not want this man to go to prison.

Looking at the man now, standing at the gate to the yard, I reminded myself that Dumbledore believed he was not only innocent, but was one of the most honourable of men ever to have lived in England.

The way Dumbledore had said it had made me stand a little bit straighter, had made my heart beat a little bit faster, even though I had been born on the other side of the Atlantic, in a country that had fought a bloody war for independence from this one. Yet Dumbledore had talked of another war, one Gary and I had scarcely even been aware of; one that had pitted wizard against wizard; a war in which this man had fought on the side of good.

"Then why does your ministry want to put him in prison?" Gary had asked.

"They think he is a traitor," Dumbledore had replied.

I had thought about Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. I did not think this man looked that powerful. He did not even look very honourable at the moment. More than anything else, he looked like a tramp.

Or perhaps like a rock star, I thought, and swallowed a grin.

"Hello," I said to him, opening the gate. "I'm Elspeth Brock."

"Sirius Black," he said, and walked into the yard. "Albus Dumbledore sent me."

It may seem odd, my being an American (or perhaps my being an American is what explains it), but as soon as I heard him speak I believed what Dumbledore had said about him. He might not look as powerful, or as influential, as Aaron Burr; he might not look "to the manor born," but his voice expressed it. Even Americans can tell, within seconds, some of the things English accents say about the speakers. Something within me wanted to invite this man up to the Hall--new or old--to tea; to sit him in a leather chair by the fire, to hunt out the Royal Doulton and the sterling and the best biscuits and apologise for its being the parlour-maid's half-day.

But teatime is feeding time in the yard, and it was Jeremy's afternoon off, and Tim and I had two dozen flakes of hay to cart round, two dozen water buckets to top up, and one dozen feeds to measure and pour out, all before bringing the twelve horses in from paddock and pasture.

"I'll show you where to put your things," I told Sirius, leading the way to the coachman's house--my house. "You can wash if you like--and have you got something to tie your hair back with?" I asked, realising I had no idea whether wizards used washbasins or toilets.

"It won't get in my way," Sirius told me.

* * * *

I don't know how he managed it, but he was right. His hair stayed out of his face, and did not seem to bother him at all, while he carried armfuls of hay to the loose boxes, pushed the wheelbarrow and poured its buckets of feed into the horses' feed buckets, and filled their water buckets from the yard hose.

After the first two boxes, Jeremy and I left him to it and went to bring in the horses, taking with us Amy and Bryony, who had just arrived from school and seemed more eager to help the new "help" than to fetch in their own ponies.

I brought Ben and Carob in first, as they were first at the gate of their pasture, and Tim came behind with Charlie and Doofus, who we all agreed needed a new name as soon as possible.

I had left Sirius standing outside Charlie's box, holding the hose over the half-door while the water bucket filled.

As I reentered the yard now, I saw Sirius turn away from Bonnie's door, at the far end of the row from Charlie's, leaving the hose dangling over the door while he started across the yard to the opposite row of boxes. Since that was Ben and Carob's side, I led them across to Sirius, and caught him up just as he was undoing the latch on Ben's door.

"Thanks," I said, and turned Ben into his box, slipping off his head collar as he walked past me into the box. Carob pulled at his lead rope, and Sirius moved towards his door, but turned back as I spoke again, quietly, so that Tim would not overhear.

"One thing we never do is leave a hose unattended," I said. "It could fall out of the bucket and flood the bedding, or the bucket could overfill, or--"

Sirius nodded before I could think of other possibilities. "Right," he said, and went back across the yard to Bonnie's door. He laid a hand on the hose, and peered over the door at the water bucket.

Thoughtfully, I took Carob into his box. Sirius had not seemed to resent my mild ticking-off, and I had tried to make it sound like advice rather than criticism. There was after all no reason to criticize someone for doing what they had not been properly trained to do anyway. I would have liked to have had time to sit down with Sirius and go over what I expected of him, what his duties would be and how do to them; but Dumbledore had not exactly given me advance notice of his new helper. Jeremy and Tim had come to me from other yards, with as much experience as I had, and their ways of doing things were as good as my own, so we had all settled down well together. Although Jeremy was English and Tim was Irish, we all spoke more or less the same horsey language, and had worked around horses for years before working together at Brocklehurst.

But Sirius was an unknown quantity.

In our brief time together, while I had shown him over the house, he had told me that he had never worked with "actual horses." It had not seemed to be the time to ask him what other sort of horses might exist (or might not, if they were not "actual" horses), but after I had left him at the door of the loo, and then when he had rejoined me in the porch, there had only been time to tell him about watering and feeding and haying as we crossed the yard to the barn.

Now as I shut Carob's door behind me and hung his head collar and lead on the adjacent hook, I saw Sirius coming across the yard, dragging the hose after him just as Jeremy or Tim or I would have done, carrying the shut-off nozzle in his hand and watching to make sure the hose trailed out straight behind him. He fed the nozzle in over Ben's door, turned the nozzle, and I heard the water gush out into Ben's bucket. Sirius did not look at me, but kept his eyes on the bucket, pushing Ben's head gently away from his own when the horse tried to look out into the yard.

"Thanks," I murmured as I went past them to bring in two more horses.

"Get tacked up," I said to Amy and Bryony as I passed them goggling across the yard at Sirius instead of grooming their ponies. They giggled, their faces turning red, and turned to their lockers.

I went on towards the pastures.

* * * *

Later, when all the water buckets had been filled, the hay and feeds given out, and Amy and Bryony and I were in the school starting their lesson, I saw Sirius join Tim on the terrace behind the barn, where in warmer weather people often sat to watch other people ride, and to relax and talk about horses. Now, in November, the terrace and its motley chairs were less inviting than in summer, and with the dark had come a sharp cold that promised frost by morning. Amy and Bryony were trotting round and round the school, warming up in every sense of the expression, and Tim, huddled in his ancient duffel coat, was trying to warm himself with a cigarette. He offered one to Sirius, who shook his head, and buttoned up his own jacket, and pulled a tweed cap out of his pocket and put it on, drawing it down to his ears. In his wellies and jeans and worn jacket he looked both as rough and as homely as Tim, and I wondered just how he had left the hose "unattended" to fill Bonnie's bucket, and perhaps others, while Tim and the girls and I had been out bringing in the horses.

The lights were on in the barn behind the terrace, and as I spoke to the girls to begin the actual lesson, I saw Tim go back into the barn, presumably to get a mug of tea. Only one end of the barn was used nowadays to store hay, and only about a dozen bales at a time. The terrace was at the other end of the barn, just outside the feed room, which was also the nearest thing I had to a "yard office." There was an ancient roll-top desk, an old filing cabinet, and a table that held an electric kettle, a dozen or so mugs, a tin of tea and one of sugar, and--at this cold time of year--a jug of milk.

I saw Tim return with two mugs, one of which he handed to Sirius before starting out across the strip of grass between the terrace and the school. I heard Sirius call after him; Tim turned back towards Sirius; and the next thing I knew, I was holding a mug of steaming tea in my hands.

I very nearly dropped it. Not because it was hot--I had on thick gloves and could feel only a pleasant warmth through their fleece palms--but because I had not been given even a "heads up," "here, catch!" kind of warning. One moment I had been standing in the centre of the school, about to ask Amy to canter; the next moment I was standing in the centre of the school, holding a mug of hot tea.

I stared down at the steaming, golden-beigey liquid, smelling so hot and strong and sweet, just the way I liked it. Then I looked up and stared across the grass at Sirius, who was standing there in the light from the feed room, grinning at me.

Well, at least he hadn't frightened the ponies. They didn't even seem to have noticed. Nor did Amy, who had been anticipating my request for a canter and was concentrating on her riding and her pony; nor did Bryony, who had been anticipating my request for Amy to canter and was concentrating on keeping her own pony down to a quiet trot. I decided to carry on with the lesson, and to have a talk with Sirius after the ponies were put up and the girls, and Tim, had gone home.

I did not return Sirius's smile. But I did hold up the mug, in a gesture of genuine gratitude. Then I turned to Amy. "Right, shorten your reins just a bit more. Right. Now ask him to canter."

Amy asked, and Kinglet cantered. They circuited the school once, changed rein down the centre, and cantered in the other direction; then Bryony and Todhunter had a turn. Todhunter bucked on the first stride, and Bryony pulled him back to a trot. After a few strides they took off again, and Tod bucked again.

This time Bryony went off, over his shoulder, and down into the sandy footing of the school, while Tod cantered on, towards the gate, bucking and breaking wind all the way.

Tim came to the gate to catch him. The gate was closed, as always when I was giving a lesson, but Tod seemed to think he could undo the latch, and while he was trying, Tim caught his reins and jerked him to a standstill. It was not the way I would have scolded the pony, but I was too busy hurrying towards Bryony and trying at the same time to calm Amy, who had trotted Kinglet into the centre of the school and was about to dismount.

"Stay on him!" I told her, and bent over Bryony. Sirius was already beside her, having appeared there as suddenly as he had appeared outside the yard gate earlier, and was kneeling down in the footing by her.

Bryony was lying on her side, looking terribly pale in the ghostly glow of the school lights. I was hugely relieved to see that her breathing looked normal, and that her eyes were open and focusing.

I touched her shoulder gently. "Hey," I said softly. "Bryony. What happened?"

"I got bucked off," she said, quite clearly.

It was not the first time.

"How do you feel?" I asked her.

"Really, really fed up," she replied. "I am so utterly fed up with Tod doing that!" Her voice broke on the last two words, and she started to cry, rubbing her face with a gloved and sandy hand.

"Don't," I said. "You'll get sand in your eyes." But even as I reached out to take her hand, the sand disappeared from the glove. I glanced sharply up at Sirius, but he was looking down at Bryony.

"Makes a habit of bucking, does he?" Sirius asked her. His voice was as soft as mine had been.

Bryony nodded, not looking at either of us.

"Here," said Sirius, and handed her a handkerchief. He had not taken it from his pocket; he just handed it to her. She took it, and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, Elspeth," she said, her voice quavering.

"Well, we're not at a show," I said lightly. I was relieved to see her smile. "Do you hurt anywhere?" I asked her. "Can you sit up?"

"If I sit up I may throw up," Bryony said.

"Oh, goodness, don't do that!" Sirius's tone was as teasing as mine had been. "Or at least let me get out of the way first." He stood up, and as he did so, Bryony was standing up with him, both his hands holding hers as he peered, smiling, down into her face. "Well?" he asked quietly.

"Well?" she looked back up at him, puzzled.

"Are you going to throw up?"

"I don't think so." Bryony shook her head gently.

"Does your head hurt?" I asked her.

"No."

"Are you dizzy?"

"No."

"Do you think you can get back up on Tod?"

She heaved a huge sigh. "I suppose I must, mustn't I?"

Sirius looked questioningly at me.

"Well ..." I looked back at him. "If you throw up on Tod it'll take us all night to clean him up."

Bryony giggled. "I don't think I'll throw up on him. Although if it weren't for you and--" She glanced curiously at Sirius--"Tod would deserve it if I did."

"Oh, yuck!" Amy exclaimed, joining us. She had, as I had instructed, stayed on Kinglet, and now she had ridden him over to us. "Don't throw up on Tod. It'll ruin your saddle."

We all laughed, including Tim, who was leading Tod towards us. Tod did not look the least bit repentant, but rolled his eye at Kinglet, who put his ears back.

"Want to get back up on this wild animal?" Tim asked Bryony.

She nodded, and tightened Tod's girth before letting Tim give her a leg up. She gathered up her reins with her usual confident competence, and adjusted her hat. "Do you want me to canter again, Elspeth?" she asked.

"Not tonight," I said, feeling a rush of pleasure at her question. Some children--some adults, for that matter--would have told me they were not going to canter again, not tonight, perhaps not ever. I knew I would have to canter on Tod tonight, before he went back to his box. I, or Tim, perhaps. Tim's legs were rather too long for the pony, but he probably did not weigh much more than I, who had not had to struggle for years to keep my weight down for racing.

"Just walk him around a couple of times," I said. "But let me know if you start to feel dizzy or funny."

"I feel fine," said Bryony.

"Shall I go round with you?" Amy asked.

Bryony shrugged, but the two of them set off together, Amy taking the lead and Bryony keeping Tod well back from Kinglet's heels. Tim and Sirius and I stood watching them. "I wish I still had my tea," I said, suddenly wondering what I'd done with it when Tod had unseated Bryony. And just as suddenly, the mug was in my hand, steaming again, the warmth seeping through the palms of my gloves.

"I do wish you wouldn't keep doing that," Tim said mildly, glancing at Sirius, who made a face as he sipped at his tea.

"Oh, right," said Sirius, when he had swallowed. "You said you prefer green tea this time of night."

Nothing happened that I could see, but Tim sighed and took a sip of his tea. "That's better," he said to Sirius. "You would prefer black, I suppose."

I looked at Tim over the rim of my mug. He saw me, and raised an eyebrow. "What?" he asked.

"I thought you'd been a jockey," I told him.

"That's right," he said. "I was."

"What else were you?"

He frowned. Then he smiled, and shook his head. "Never a wizard," he said. "It isn't something you grow out of."

Sirius snorted, and choked on his tea. Tim slapped him on the back, which didn't help much. Ignoring Sirius's coughing, Tim said, "I had an uncle," to me, and then to Sirius, "Give us your wand, then."

Sirius, still coughing, gave him a look. "OK, OK, cough, then," Tim said, and turned back to me.

"I never met this uncle," he said. "I only ever heard about him, from my mum. He was her uncle, really. My great-uncle. She had this really weird photograph of him."

"What sort of photograph?" Sirius rasped, his coughing fit over. He drank some more tea. I noticed that all three of our mugs were still steaming.

"A moving one," said Tim. "So, Elspeth, which one of us gets to canter Tod tonight? Or shall we give Sirius his first horse-riding lesson?"

"On a pony?" Sirius looked as shocked as I was beginning to feel.

"Less far to fall," Tim replied, and I laughed at the look on Sirius's face.

* * * *

We didn't give Sirius a riding lesson that evening. I think we had all had enough for one day. I did let Tim ride Tod while I went with Amy and Bryony to rub Kinglet down and wait for Amy's mother to come pick up the girls. While we waited I telephoned Bryony's mother and told her about this latest bout of bucking. Jane Hurst sighed and said she would talk to Bryony. If Tod wasn't going to work out, then he wasn't going to work out, and the sooner he was sold on, the better. I replied that he needed more work than Bryony could give him in term time, but added that I really couldn't use a bucker with the other riders in the lesson programme. Jane sighed again and said absolutely not and she would talk to Bryony. Meanwhile could I ride him between Bryony's lessons and charge Jane for schooling him? I said I would look at my timetable and get back to her.

By this time Amy's mother had arrived and collected the girls, and Tim had finished cantering Tod (without getting bucked off), and was rubbing the pony down in the yard.

"Where's Sirius?" I asked, coming out of the office from phoning Jane Hurst.

"Err ..." Tim bent to pick up Tod's hind foot.

"Yes?" I prompted.

Tim finished cleaning the hoof and walked around to Tod's other side. "He said he was going for a run."

"A run?" What would Dumbledore say, I wondered? "Where to?" I asked.

Tim shrugged. "I expect he just wanted to get out a bit," he said. "You know he can't go anywhere."

"No I don't," I replied. "All I know is he's supposed to be lying low here. How can he lie low if he goes out running around?"

"He can't run anywhere," Tim said quietly. "If he's supposed to stay here, he'll stay here. He can't not."

"That's trusting honour rather far," I murmured, as much to myself as to Tim. I wondered what Gary would say.

"It isn't just a matter of honour," Tim said. "Well, it is, I reckon, in a sense. He's been told he can't leave, and he's said he won't. Hasn't he?"

"How should I know? All I know is what Dumbledore said. How do you know so much about all this, anyway?" I asked Tim. "I mean, I'm assuming from what you said about your uncle that he was a wizard. But you're not. How do you know so much about honour among wizards?"

"I don't," Tim said. "But Sirius told you he wouldn't leave, didn't he?"

Did he, I asked myself? What had he told me? I had told him about haying, and watering, and feeding ... and about the house, the room that would be his, I had showed him the bathroom, and the toilet, and ...

"Yes," I told Tim now, remembering. "He did."

I had showed him the toilet, and said I would meet him down in the porch, and he had said, as he shut the door between us, "I won't leave."

I had thought he was mocking both of us, telling me not to wait just outside the door, don't worry, I won't try to escape. I had thought that if he did, I had no way to bind him, to keep him around. I had not thought of something I knew, about the origins of words, about how the word spell had to do with words themselves, and with speaking them.

"So ..." I said to Tim, thinking as I spoke, "he was binding himself with his words?"

"Something like that." Tim took Tod's rug from the rail by the door and unfolded it over the pony's back. "At any rate, he was told he can't leave, and he's told you he won't. So he'll stay."

* * * *

It must work a bit like an electric fence, I told myself. Or like a security system of beams invisible to the naked eye. You can't see them, but they're there. The horse knows the fence is electric, whether or not you've remembered to switch the current on. You tell a trained dog to stay, and he stays. I told myself about all these things as I worked in my kitchen, getting supper for myself and for the man I hoped would show up in time to eat it. In time for me to lock up and switch the lights off and go to bed. Not that keys and bolts could keep out someone who could do magic, any more than they could keep him in.

Where could he have gone, I asked myself, heating up soup and garlic bread. Into the village? To the pub? For a run, Tim had said. Where could he run in the dark, I wondered? I had left the yard lights on so he could find his way back. It was not late, but I did not want to leave them on all night. The horses needed their sleep as much as I needed mine. As much as I assumed Sirius needed his. Surely wizards needed sleep, the same as everyone else, I told myself. If I had a distant relative who was a wizard (and if he had relatives who were wizards), and if Tim had a magical relative, then we were all just human beings, with different abilities, maybe, but all just humans, with human needs. If we worked hard, we got tired, and hungry, and we wanted more than a mug of tea. We wanted supper, and a bath, and a good night's sleep, especially if we were in a strange place, among strange people (I laughed at the idea that I might well seem strange to Sirius). Anyone would sleep better in a house than in a prison cell. Anyone who had got out of being sent to prison would want to take every opportunity to get out and go for a run. I just hoped that this "anyone" would come back sometime tonight.

I was yawning, half asleep in front of the television, when he came in, opening the front door quietly and shutting it again with only a quiet click of the latch. I saw his shadow against the hall light and I struggled up out of my chair and went to the door of the sitting room.

"Would you like some supper?" I asked.

He shook his head. His hair was a dark cloud around his head, his eyes were hollow above his hollow, grey-stubbled cheeks. "I got something while I was out," he said.

"What?" I asked, wondering if it had been hot and filling.

He hesitated only a second. "Faisan chasseur," he said.

Where in the world had he found that, I wondered?

Ah. The Old Hall, I thought. It only looked a ruin to Gary and me ...

"I hope it was good," I smiled.

He grinned and licked his lips. "So ... I thought I'd have a bath and go to bed," he said. "Unless you need me?"

In the hall light his expression gave all sorts of meanings to that simple question.

"Not tonight," I said, sounding a lot more brisk and businesslike than I felt. "Just save me some hot water." And I'm not going to get into any by even thinking about you in any way but as "the help," I added to myself.

He gave me a little frown, as though puzzled; then his brow cleared, and he nodded. "Hot water," he said. "What time will you want me in the morning?"

"At six," I replied. "In the yard."

He nodded, and I thought his lips twitched. But in the next second he was going up the stairs, taking them two at a time as if he had not been out either for a run or for a fancy French meal wherever. I locked the front door, and switched off the hall light, and went back to my chair, hoping I would be able to stay awake until he was out of the bath and I could go up and have one myself.

* * * *

I had been watching the local news, but either very strange and scary things had been happening in the neighborhood, or the news had ended and a horror film had come on.

I awoke to darkness, and to a blank screen in front of me, and to what sounded like someone moaning in their sleep.

It was someone moaning in their sleep. Oh, goodness--oh, no--it was Sirius.

I was out of the chair and halfway up the stairs before I was really, fully, awake.

I did not even knock on his door, but opened it and went into the bedroom. The yard lights I had forgotten to switch off shone through the blind. I could see Sirius, in the bed, moving in the sleeping bag as if he were delirious, moaning, and muttering between the moans.

I could not understand his words. I didn't care. They didn't matter. What mattered was that he was having a nightmare, either from whatever that French-sounding thing was that he had eaten, or from whatever the ministry had wanted to imprison him for.

I crossed the room in two steps and sat down on the edge of the bed. I wanted to lay a hand on his shoulder, but I did not want to startle him into wakefulness, nor did I want to touch his bare skin with my bare hand. Not that I was afraid of him, I told myself.

"Sirius," I said quietly. "Sirius, it's OK. I'm here."

I wanted to put my arms around him and lift him up, to hold him as I would hold a frightened dog or cat. But I would only attempt to do so with an animal that knew me, not with a strange one that might be even more frightened by my attempt to comfort it. And I was as much a stranger to Sirius as he was to me.

"Sirius," I said again. "Wake up."

He woke with a gasp and a start, shaking his head as if to shake off a cloud of terrors; opening his eyes and staring up at me, first without recognition, then with an appalled sort of awareness followed by embarrassment. He lowered his eyes and looked away, his chest heaving with deep breaths, sweat shining on the pale skin in the hollow of his throat.

He heaved a deep sigh, and swallowed, and his eyelids blinked several times. Then he looked back up at me, but his eyes did not quite meet mine. "Did I wake you up?" he asked, and his voice was thick with sleep.

I could not tell him he had. "I was downstairs," I said; and then I realized that he might think it worse that I had heard him all that way than just from across the landing.

He sighed again. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" I asked. "You weren't having a nightmare on purpose."

His eyes did meet mine then, and he gave a little laugh, and shook his head, turning away from me.

"Would you like some cocoa?" I asked.

He laughed again, and then clenched his teeth and blinked as if he were fighting back sudden tears. "You sound like--"

He sighed again, and swallowed hard.

Like whom, I wondered? Your mum? Your Auntie Whoever?

"Do you want to tell me about the dream?" I asked aloud.

He shook his head decisively.

"It wasn't about a horse-riding lesson, was it?" I asked lightly. "Or throwing up faisan chasseur all over the pony?"

He laughed, a real laugh this time, but when he looked up at me again there was still something in his face that told me he felt more like crying. He put a hand up and scratched his eyebrow, and then rubbed the hand down over his face before putting it back inside the sleeping bag.

"It's OK," I told him.

That's what you think, his expression said.

I patted his shoulder, and stood up. "I'm going to have some cocoa," I said. "I'll bring you a cup up."

"I don't want any."

"Is there anything you do want?" To leave here? To go back where you came from, to where you belong? To whatever you were doing before your ministry decided to imprison you? To your world as it was before it turned against you? To go and stay at the Old Hall, with wizards who I presume don't think you've done anything to be put in prison for?

"I'd like a pee," he said. "If you could just let me get my robes on--" He put out his hand again, and a long black garment I had not noticed before rose from the chair across the room and came to his outstretched hand.

"Go pee," I said. "And let me know if you change your mind about the cocoa."

"I have done," he said. "I'd like some, if you're going to make it anyway."

"I'll bring it up," I said, and left the room, shutting the door behind me.

* * * *

When I brought the mug of cocoa, hot and steaming, Sirius's door was open, and at first I thought the bedside lamp was on. But as I came through the door I saw that it was not the lamp that glowed, but the wooden object, like a conductor's baton, that stood on the bedside table next to the lamp. It stood on end, balanced and motionless, its tip giving off a pale but warm light. The light fell upon the bed where Sirius lay, as before, snug in his sleeping bag, with the long black robe spread over it now and drawn up to his chin. Robes, he had said. Not robe. It did not look at all like a dressing gown. Above its dark folds his face looked pale. His eyes were closed, and I could tell he was asleep.

I set the mug down beside the lamp and the wand. He could warm the cocoa if he woke and wanted it.

"Sleep well, Sirius," I whispered, and turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open so that if he had any more nightmares I would hear and come to him.

* Author's Note: The Elvis Presley quote is from the song "Kissin' Cousins," by Fred Wise and

Randy Starr, from the1964 film Kissin' Cousins.