Black Dog

Chapter Six

Jeannie awoke in the small hours of the morning feeling dry mouthed and disoriented. She had cried for a long while, cried until her eyes were heavy, and then she had just rolled herself in her duvet, too exhausted to undress. Now she was awake and remembered that she had not cleaned her teeth or done any of the other things usually associated with bedtime and was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She rolled over and stretched, about to throw back the duvet and sit up, but paused as she heard a familiar rhythmic noise. She listened for a moment then smiled. Dog was snoring. He had fussed over her until she had stopped crying but she had felt too tired to make him go back down to the kitchen so she had shown him the rug at the foot of the bed and urged him to curl up on that. She had drifted off to sleep listening to his quiet movements as he scratched the rug into a suitably messy heap, turned round several times to flatten it out again then flopped down with a grunt.

"Night, Dog," she had whispered and had smiled as she heard a soft wuff in reply.

She sat up and went quietly across to the bathroom where she bathed her eyes and washed her face, then returned to her room and walked around the end of the bed to her chest of drawers to find a night gown. The choice came down to a wisp of pale green silk, bought once on impulse when she thought that perhaps she might one day have someone to share it with, and a baggy t-shirt with a kitten on it. She touched the silk sadly then grabbing the kitten she shut the drawer and turned round to go back to bed. Instead she froze, unable for the moment to believe what she was seeing.

Dog was laying with his back to her, sprawled on his side, as he always was when deeply asleep, his paws twitching occasionally as he dreamed, yet there was another form occupying the same space. As she watched, Dog's image flickered and the other sharpened like a film coming into focus and her dog was gone. Instead of the familiar arrangement of black fur, she could see a tumble of black hair and dark fabric.

Jeannie covered her mouth with one hand, almost afraid to breathe for fear of waking him, and crept forward and knelt at his side. She had left the landing light on and, while her - guest? lay in shadow she could see him well enough. As she leaned forward to peer at his face, his human frame protested at the discomfort of laying on shoulder and hip and he turned onto his back, one outflung hand coming to rest beside her knee. Jeannie stared, appalled and fascinated. His face was masked by long, curling black hair and a beard, his skin was slightly olive in tone on both face and body for his torso was bared from throat to waist by clothing that hung loosely open from his shoulders and arms. The clothing had once been fine. A white linen shirt, now torn and singed and heavily stained about the collar and down the front, lay open, the buttons long since ripped away. Below the waist he wore breeches of an odd design with a double row of buttons instead of a fly and high, dark boots of some smooth scaly leather. The boots, while scuffed, were relatively intact but the breeches were torn, gaping open along the seam from right hip to knee.

Over all, he wore a strange long garment like a cross between a cloak and - Jeannie considered for a moment - a bathrobe, in a closely woven dark green fabric that was almost as damaged as his shirt. However, it wasn't the state of his clothing that made her catch her breath and tears spring to her eyes.

The man was damaged too. Everywhere she looked she could see the traces of injuries. The sparse hair on his chest was patched with the bare shiny skin of a healing burn and there was a similar scar across his jaw and cheek leaving a slash like a knife cut through the growth of his beard. His arms were striped with pale scars and there were more on his belly and his thigh. Jeannie drew a deep and rather shaky breath and carefully lifted the hand by her knee between her own. Long fingered and shapely, it lay lax in her grasp, the knuckles padded with scar tissue and a twisted seam where the smallest finger had once been. She remembered noticing the week before that Dog was missing a toe from his right forepaw.

"Oh, Dog," she breathed. "Who did this to you?"

She lay his hand back down and reached out to move the hair from his face, revealing strongly arching brows, a sweep of dark lashes that she would have killed for and a classically straight nose, marred at the tip by three parallel scratches, fresh ones, inflicted the previous day by the grey cat. As she removed her hand, he blinked then opened his eyes fully. The eyes that seemed so pale against Dog's black fur were a deeper more vivid colour against skin.

"Hello," she whispered and he smiled, a happy, carefree, mindless smile and closed his eyes. Again the picture flickered and suddenly the black dog was back, tail thumping a welcome.

*

Next morning, Jeannie watched Dog closely. He splashed his water across the floor as usual, flattened his ears in chagrin when told off and went outside to chase next door's cat.

On their walk he faced down the butcher's nasty Airedale and stood tied to a ring outside the Post Office, resigned to being mauled by Mrs Arkwright's toddler, while Mrs Arkwright chatted to Jeannie, who had gone inside to hand in the items taken from Clive's pockets.

"Where on earth did these come from, lovely?" asked Mr Johnson, behind the counter.

"I found them in the street," she explained. Mercifully there had been nobody about when Clive and Jim had made their getaway.

"Well, I never," he smiled. "Mrs Pearson was only in this morning worrying herself sick because she thought she might have dropped her pension book, She'll be really glad to get it back. But these others are a bit of a puzzle. They were all together, you say?"

"In the gutter just down from where I live," Jeannie confirmed. "Can't think how they got there."

"Pickpockets, I bet you," Mrs Arkwright said with relish.

"Well, I didn't see who dropped them," Jeannie told them with a shrug.

Outside, Mrs Arkwright smiled as Jeannie retrieved Dog from the child's leech like grip.

"Such a handsome beast, "She commented. "And so trustworthy. If only men were as faithful, eh?"

Jeannie gave a weak smile and headed home.

Later she stuffed envelopes while Dog lay at her feet chewing a bone, a 'thank you' present for saving her pay packet, and Jeannie frowned.

"I had the most peculiar dream last night," she told him. "I dreamed that you turned into the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, if a trifle grubby - every woman's dream, a man who's utterly loyal, protective and faithful and who looks like a cross between Lord Byron and Heathcliffe. Any ideas why that should be?"

Dog raised his head and cocked it to one side, letting his tongue loll in the facial expression that she had decided was his way of laughing.

Jeannie laughed, too.

"Oh, I do love you," she said. "I don't know which way you're better looking only those clothes are a disgrace! I'll leave a change out for you. Levis OK? Zip or button fly?"

She laughed again, at herself as much as at him, but when she went to bed she left the ancient pair of 501s she used for painting and a t-shirt on the kitchen table.

Two hours later, she was still unable to sleep. She was sure that she had had a very odd dream. Dogs did not change into men, or vice versa. If they did, she should tell someone, the government or somebody. However, she had probably been dreaming. She lay still for another few minutes, watching the figures on her alarm clock changing with annoyance. One a.m. and she had never felt less like sleep.

"Oh, this is stupid," she grumbled at last, got out of bed and slid her feet into her slippers. "There's only one way to settle this."

She crept downstairs, feeling extremely foolish, and into the kitchen. Dog was not on his blanket and she had a moment of panic before frowning and marching back into the sitting room.

"If you're on the couch," she promised, "I am taking you back for that operation!"

He was on the couch, head pillowed on folded arms, long legs doubled, so deeply asleep that he didn't stir even when Jeannie, stunned by the realisation that she had not been dreaming after all, ripped the remaining stitches through of the sprung seam on one shoulder of the green robe and eased it off the other arm. She drew the thick fabric away from him, tugging gently as it caught in the cushions and winced at the scoring on his back. Unable to resist, she extended a hand to stroke his hair away from his face again. Then she froze. This was her dog. He had lain at her feet, followed her around the house. Had she, could she, have done anything in front of the dog that she would feel desperately bad about doing in front of this - man? Hastily she ran through the past few weeks and couldn't come up with anything worse than nose-picking unless, she cringed, there was that day when she had been listening to the radio and a favourite piece of music came on and she had - danced to it. Or the day when, wanting a particular set of underwear, she had come down in a towel and dressed in the kitchen. But she remembered that on the first occasion Dog had joined in with the dancing, looking remarkably silly as he pounced at her feet and on the second he had probably - surely - been asleep anyway.

Gently she combed her fingers through the tangle of his hair.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Where did you come from?"

He sighed and his eyelids flickered and half opened and he turned his head to butt against her palm with a trusting innocence that was so at odds with his scarred face and body that tears came to her eyes.

Jeannie stroked his hair until he went back to sleep again then went to bed.

*

The jeans and t-shirt stayed on the kitchen table while Jeannie nagged Dog to change at least three times a day. The first morning he had watched anxiously as she washed the green garment and hung it to dry. When she sat down on Monday evening with a needle and thread he came and nosed the fabric, checking it over thoroughly.

"Yes, this is a bit of you," she told him. "I'm going to mend it now it's clean. Clean, remember that? If you take those other grubby things off I'll wash and mend those too."

Dog cocked his head at her and rolled over, paws in the air, as though he had never worn breeches and boots in his life.

Jeannie shook her head.

"That won't wash with me, buster," she growled. "Get that kit off and dress like a gentleman or - I'll take it off you myself, and that's a promise."

Over the next week Jeannie pursued a ruthless humanisation policy. During the day she left him to his own devices but at night she removed his water dish and left a jug and glass on the kitchen table instead. The clothing remained easily accessible and she drew his attention to them at least twice a day. She also removed the blanket from the kitchen floor each evening and left a pillow and the spare duvet folded on the end of the couch.

Sometimes the water disappeared from the jug, the pillow and duvet were frequently disarranged but the clean clothing remained undisturbed.

Late on Friday night she felt that drastic measures were called for. She made a few preparations then left Dog looking bemusedly at the bathroom sink, full of hot water, soap, scissors and a razor, a pile of towels and clean jeans and a t shirt.

"There you go," she said as she closed the door in his face. "You stay in there until I hear some action."

Two hours later she was awoken from a doze by the sound of the shower starting. It ran for twentyfive minutes then stopped. After a silence the sink emptied and then, Jeannie punched the air in delight, the lavatory flushed. There was another silence, then a plaintive whine and the sound of scratching.

"Great," Jeannie muttered, remembering Dog's first experience of the bathroom. "His Lordship has finished so the skivvy can spend the rest of the night cleaning up his mess."

Nevertheless, she hurried up to open the door and Dog slunk out, head and tail both very low, and crept past her and down the stairs. He was damp rather than wet, smelled of soap and not much else and, she peered into the bathroom and gasped, he had even cleaned up after himself and folded all the damp towels and his torn shirt and breeches were in a hopeless tangle on top of the linen basket!

"Oh, Dog," Jeannie cried, suddenly feeling like a monster. She grabbed a dry towel and chased him into the kitchen where he had gone to ground under the table. Obviously either deeply ashamed or deeply offended, he refused to emerge so she crawled under the table after him and told him how proud she was of him, how pleased she was with him and generally what a wonderful person he was until his ears lifted and the tip of his tail deigned to wag. Then she rubbed his ears and face dry very carefully before fetching her hairdryer.

"I'm sorry," she said, contritely, "but you should take better care of yourself, you know. I'm going to do that twice a week until you start doing it voluntarily because you're far too handsome to be neglected."

Dog hung his head, but by the time she had run the hairdryer over him a few times, causing his fur to fluff up enormously, they were both laughing again.

*

This is ridiculous behaviour for a man of your age, Remus told himself, somewhat tipsily, as he Apparated just outside the garden gate. His latest assignation, with one of the medi-witches who had cared for him so well in St Mungo's, had started out sensibly enough with a nice meal in Diagon Alley and a walk along the Embankment, but then she had suggested that he might like a night cap in the Cauldron, and he had been made incredibly welcome, last time nobody would speak to him apart from Tom. Then he had seen her home and she had invited him in for 'coffee'. He was beginning to recognise the particular inflexion that word could take on when a hot drink was the last thing he was likely to get. Strangely, though he had expected the interest in him to die down as the magazine article became old news, it had not done so and he was still receiving a steady stream of letters and invitations while werewolves in general were still getting a good press.

Now, here he was creeping up the garden path at three in the morning like a guilty teenager. And that's just what you are, he thought, a deeply sad case of arrested development. James and Sirius got all this sort of thing out of their systems before they were twenty. Then he smiled, for it was still very sweet and he knew he had to make the most of it before the inevitable backlash.

Moving silently, if a little unsteadily, he drifted up the path to the front door and fished in his pocket for his key and then stood for a moment, trying to remember the exact sequence in which he had to lift the defensive hexes before putting the key in the lock. They were probably no longer necessary but old habits died hard.

It was while he was standing, key in hand, that a quiet voice remarked, "Well, look what the cat dragged in."

Remus suppressed his instinctive reach for his wand for the voice was well known to him, if not exactly friendly.

"Mr. Malfoy, or rather Legate Malfoy, I should say," Remus turned very slowly and carefully, one did not take chances with an Auror. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

Draco stepped into the small patch of light cast by the porch lamp and eyed Remus' dishevelled appearance with amused exasperation.

"You look to me as though you've had about as much pleasure as you can stand," he said. "Lupin, you're a mess but I need to talk to you."

"Well, give me a moment and you can come inside."

Draco shook his head.

"I want to talk to you, not the rest of the ménage a trois. Come with me, I know where we can get some really strong coffee."

Remus raised his eyebrows warily but, since the word was missing the all important inflexion, he went.

Ten minutes later they were sitting in a transport café just off the M5 cradling thick white pottery mugs that contained a steaming liquid that Remus suspected was pure caffeine.

"Of all the places in the world I might have thought to see you, young Malfoy, this is about the last. How did you find it?" he asked, glancing nervously around that the few people who were eating the all-day breakfast, feeding the jukebox or sitting staring into a mug, much as he and Malfoy were doing.

"I'm an Auror," Draco replied. "I can find a place that sells coffee that will polish metal in any town in the la. The knowledge comes with the uniform and the desire to blow people to kingdom come. Why?"

"Oh, Sirius brought me here in nineteen - doesn't matter - he was an Auror then, too. He thought I might like to "do a ton", I think the term was, on his bike. He stopped here when I started to hyperventilate."

"I'm not surprised, Black has that effect on most people. Now listen, White Fang....."

"White Fang?" Remus gave an incredulous whoop drawing the attention of some of the clientele who glared at them. "Mr Malfoy, I am surprised. As one who frequently feels the "call of the wild" I am quite a fan of Jack London but you....a student who flunked Muggle studies at OWLs level with record breaking low marks by failing to write anything other than 'it's all total bollocks' on his exam parchment...."

"Father bought me my own set of flaying knives for that," Draco interjected.

"Lovely," Remus eyed him with some alarm. "Well that rather proves my point and explains why I'm so surprised. Do I detect a sudden change of heart?"

"No," Draco snapped acidly, "you detect three months spent in a shitty bedsit in Paddington watching crappy Muggle TV while I waited for my powers to come back so I could break the wards my late father, damn his eyes, set on Malfoy Manor. God, I could still whistle you every note of the theme tunes of all the major soaps. At my lowest I even watched the Australian ones as well, and believe me, Lupin, you can't get much lower than that without seriously considering razor blades in the bath. In comparison, children's television was positively intellectual. Now, drink that coffee and pay attention. Did Ron mention that he had seen me?"

"Yes, he did," Remus' smile faded and he leaned back against the torn vinyl of his seat and frowned at Draco, "and he told me what you were drinking. Ogden's and pixie dust'll kill you in the end. He told me what you said as well."

"Angry?" Draco asked.

"No, everyone is entitled to go to hell in their own way," Remus said in the infuriatingly patient way that made Draco want to slap him. "I don't agree with what you said though."

"Neither do I," Draco's mouth twisted wryly. "I was wrong, Lupin. It is important that we find Sirius, find him as soon as possible."

Remus gaped. A Malfoy admitting that he was wrong?

"Why?" he asked after a moment.

"The power drain," Draco said as though it was self explanatory, then he shrugged. "All right, in words of one syllable for the terminally inebriated, at Voldemort's final dissolution, that's 'death' to you, Lupin, there was a cataclysmic power drain that affected witches and wizards over most of the country. We're back to normal now, most of us, but for weeks many of us couldn't even light our wands to read in bed. Werewolves were not affected, transformations as usual, though I suspect that, if you had been in any condition to do so, you would have found your wand as - useless as the rest of us." Draco scowled at the humiliating memory of such impotence.

"Werewolves were not affected," he repeated, "but Animagi were. I've been doing some checking up and even Minerva MacGonagall wasn't able to transfigure until September."

"But Sirius changed right there on the battlefield," Remus said softly. "The witnesses saw him. He came back carrying Peter and dropped him across Voldemort's corpse, then he changed."

"That's rather the point," Draco said acidly. "He shouldn't have been able to summon the power to change." He paused and pushed him mug aside then leaned forward, meeting Remus eyes earnestly. "Remus, I've been over that battlefield with a toothcomb, I've identified every discharge of magic on the place, but the one thing I can't find is that discharge when Sirius, Padfoot I mean, smashed Pettigrew's wand. The link between Voldemort and Pettigrew was so strong that when it earthed it should have left a crater a foot deep but there is nothing. Nothing at all."

"Power like that can't have just dissipated," Remus agreed, straightening in his seat and feeling much more sober. "If it had been over running water..."

"Well it wasn't was it? The drainage culvert was the closest thing to running water and that was two hundred yards away. So, if the power didn't go to earth and it certainly didn't dissipate it can only have gone to one place."

"Rubbish," Remus set his mug down with a bang. "Oh come on Malfoy, it would have blown his head off."

Draco, however was shaking his head.

"I saw my father absorb huge amounts of power from Voldemort, when he was old pasty face's blue-eyed boy, and towards the end Sirius was making him look like a beginner. And it might explain why Sirius was able to change - the dark lord's doomsday curse was designed to affect everybody else's power, not his own."

"So," Remus began cautiously, "there's a possibility that Sirius has a part of Voldemort's power and probably most of Peter's seething around in his skull. Good grief, Draco."

"Good doesn't come into it," Draco said solemnly. "We have to find him because we need to find out who's in control. Sirius Black, Wormtail or ..."

"Voldemort," Remus finished and dropped his face into his hands. "Oh, Draco, doesn't it ever end?"

"Not for us, apparently. But Remus, if you ever find out who's getting all the good luck, tell me where he lives so I can go round and hex his cat."