by Cassandra

Sirius left the house before dawn, and took advantage of the darkness to fly from his home in Bristol to the ferry terminal near Swansea. It was easy enough: no one noticed save one or two of his neighbours, who awoke suddenly, and lay for a little while wondering where they could have heard a motorbike’s roar on a sleepy Saturday morning.

For an hour or so he played a game: glancing back over his shoulder, he would see the mild golden glow illuminate the horizon, and then slowly concentrate into a raging band of light that grew larger and more condensed every time he looked upon it. Glancing downwards, he would see the blue shadows still lying on the sheltered downlands under his feet, and an advancing wave of liquid illumination flooding the smooth hills like syrup.

He raced the light, thrilling like a boy to every turn of greater speed. There were, perhaps, a few tense moments towards the end when he became painfully conscious of himself as a loud, conspicuous black spot against peach-tinted clouds and a translucent blue sky; but no frothing-mouthed Ministry representatives accosted him, and he did manage to touch down a little way from the terminal only a few minutes before the first ferry was due to sail, across the Irish Sea to Wexford.

"Keep the change, love," he said to the sallow-faced, sandy-haired girl in the ticket window. She blushed a fiery red that clashed with her hair, and stammered over her customary "Have a nice day" as she held out his ticket in shaking fingers. He snatched it neatly from her fingertips and sped off.

The line of motorcars waiting to board the ferry, even at this ungodly hour, was monstrously long. They lay in thick, metallic, serpentine curves over the dull pavement, hemmed in by peeling white and yellow paint. People who had left their vehicles to wander about and buy really terrible coffee from the canteen off to one side were beginning to converge on the lines again. He had to dodge a few as he glided to the head of the line: none of the pedestrians noticed him, and to the owner of the car which he supplanted, he had always been there.

The ferry ride was longer than he would have preferred (he could have Apparated, but he disliked doing it over large bodies of water because it gave him the crawls, and besides, it was nice now and again to spend a day in simple, mindless travel, moving without the thought of getting anywhere), but filled with cool breezes and the taste of salt on his lips. Dolphins like living, writhing scrimshaws sported about the bows for nearly half an hour, and the little dark birds that Peg had taught him to recognise as shearwaters swooped with tireless energy through the leaping crests of the waves. The only thing that he disliked was the huge rattling bulk of the ferry, and the choking smell of petrol and oil that hung around it and made him want to wash himself for fear the stench would cling to him.

He zoomed off the ferry far ahead of everyone else, easily evading the orange-clad Muggles who were waving their arms about in a frenzy to raise the bright yellow-and-black pole while encouraging the drivers on the ferry to wait just a moment and not run them over.

Ireland was beautiful in the autumn, in a way that Britain never could be. In the cities, sycamores lined the picturesque streets like living flames; out among the bogs and the hills tall grasses waved and the clouds which raced by overhead seemed almost touchable. Sirius set out on a course which would take him half the length of Ireland from Cork straight to Connemara on the west coast. The ride was a long one, but the scenery remained so beautiful that he felt he could ride forever.

Not exactly forever, as he found out in the early afternoon as he passed through the border between County Tipperary and County Galway. Clouds which had been gathering innocently above him for a long while suddenly rent themselves open and dumped a shower of lashing rain down to the unfortunate earth and him. He was so shocked by the suddenness of it all that by the time he regained his wits enough to mutter a shielding spell (and this still at 50 miles per hour), he was wet through. His tyres threw up showers of muddy gravel, which pocked his boots and calves and gave them a spotted appearance. At first he revelled in the feel of pelting water and loneliness out on the plains, but soon enough the wet and the cold got through to him; his cheekbones and temples aching with the chill of the wind. He began to shiver and kept going through sheer stubbornness.

Two hours later and very damp, he realised that he was lost.

Sirius had only a vague idea of his destination ("Just outside of the village of Cleggan," she’d said. "It’s easy enough to find."). He’d assumed that when Peg had said "it’s easy enough to find," she’d meant for everyone in general. Now it appeared that Cleggan was only "easy enough to find" to people who knew the West, preferably those who’d lived their entire lives there. From her rather bad-tempered description of Connemara ("Villages springing up like mushrooms after a rain - the place’ll soon be running with humans like rats, as bad as Dublin"), he’d expected the place to be dotted far and wide with little towns and hamlets, filled with friendly people who would point a lost traveller in the right direction and perhaps give him a drink while they were at it. Yet here he was, perched in the middle of a great barren stretch of gravel motorway, and the only sign of human presence that he could make out was a small patch of dark, newly-cut peat, with the little shooks made of drying strips dotting the grass nearby. The rest was unmoving bog, of a sort of dismal brown colour that he’d thought was exhilarating and wild that morning while he’d been dry and stupid.

After a few minutes’ worth of token standing and feeling pitiful, he did the unmanly thing and conjured up a map.

"Ireland," he told the map. It immediately displayed a nice green overview of Ireland, with the major cities and counties neatly marked out. "West of Ireland," he ordered, and it showed that, too. "Magnify. Closer still. No, no, I meant Connemara, you stupid sodding map. That means the west of Galway, not Mayo!"

The problem with this map, he reflected, was that as well as being stupid, it was also depressingly literal. It assumed that when he said he wanted the West of Ireland, he’d meant he wanted the utmost western edge of Ireland, which was somewhat to the North of what he was looking for. Half of Connemara, including the bit that he suspected he was in at the moment, had disappeared.

"Display overview of County Galway . . . and Connemara." Sulkily, the map did so. "Display west of Connemara … closer …. closer than that. Yes, that’s better. Now show me Cleggan." A little dot of red ink, neatly marked, Cleggan, appeared near a tiny peninsula on the north side of Connemara’s warty nose. "Thank you. Now show me where I am."

The map blinked cheerfully and instantly displayed a picture of the same bogs that currently surrounded him.

"Don’t get cheeky with me, boyo, or I’ll use you to polish my boots with. Show me on the map where I am. In relation to Cleggan."

The map was apparently aware of the dire state of Sirius’ boots, for it hurriedly flickered back to the image of Connemara’s peninsula, and Cleggan. A little way to the south and east of Cleggan, another little dot sprang up, marked Sirius Black.

"How far is that in miles?"

As the crow flies, the distance was approximately thirty miles. Sirius felt distinctly cheered by this: only an hour of folly left, and he could sit warm and dry. It had better be only an hour, too, because clouds were gathering again, and he could feel them looking at him with a speculative eye.

"Show me … um … display all major roads leading to Cleggan."

Nothing.

"All right, display all roads leading to Cleggan."

The map obligingly told him that the carriageway he was on would eventually lead him to Cleggan. Joy.

He could have simply made the map disappear, but it was more satisfying to crumple it viciously up into a ball which eventually shrank out of existence. Then he cracked his knuckles, sighed, and started off again.

He did indeed reach Cleggan in time, but the reason that the cloudburst caught him was that Peg was reputed to live outside of Cleggan. Sirius, almost in despair, forced himself to trundle back and forth over the increasingly sloppy roadway, peering disheartenedly into the gorse and grass which lined the path for any hint of a trail which might lead him to Peg. He was sopping wet (again) before he gave in and headed into the village, hoping against hope that even such a wretchedly tiny place as this would have a pub.

It did. Evening was drawing on and the farmers had all decided not to bother with the fields in today’s rain. Thus it was that they were all in the cosy little pub to stare at the tall, muddy, and quite, quite sodden young man who came blowing in through the rattly door in company with a blast of salty wind off the bay.

"Here, boyo, where did you appear from?" asked Denis Harrigan the proprietor, who was polishing an already gleaming pint mug with a snowy rag. "It’s a right wretched evening for even the sheep to be out."

"Apparate?" said Sirius, dazedly. "Didn’t Apparate. Rode. Give me a pint of dark. Very dark."

"I’d say he don’t need one, by the look of him," sniggered someone in the shadows.

Once, back in the mists of mutual past, Peg in a fit of irritation had made an exclamation in Irish that could have been specially crafted for this occasion. Sirius, with his infallible memory for the foul and the blasphemous, was delighted at this chance to employ it for himself. His pronunciation did stumble ever so slightly, but the overall effect was charming in that it made the gathered farmers roar with laughter and (unexpectedly but delightfully) caused his adversary to offer to buy him his pint.

"Just one, please," said Sirius, as other offers were poured down on him and his foaming glass was pushed across the shining bartop. "You don’t know the bollocking I’ll get if I turn up pissed."

"Don’t we, boyo?" said a stout, grinning fellow with muttonchop whiskers. "My missus’ll have my head for her wigstand if she smells the ale about me when I come in of a night."

"Could be, could be. Slan’cha, boys. Ahhhh …" Sirius hurried down the first gulp with a second, just to make sure that, yes, he really was drinking fine dark stout in a steamy, smoky, and above all warm room. His clothes were sticking to him uncomfortably, and his dark hair hung in dripping tendrils like rat’s tails, but he was warm. That was all that counted now.

He didn’t feel much like talking, but the farmers who’d gathered around him were very eager to share gossip that had gotten old and stale to everyone who wasn’t a complete newcomer. They chattered away, and he let their words flow over him in a comforting tide. The exhaustion was rising up now; he’d have to leave soon or he’d be flat out asleep at the bar; oh, but it was so warm in here … surely he didn’t have to leave just yet . . .

A couple of drinkers down, his idle ear homed in on a specific part of the rising buzz of conversation.

"Gerry tells me when he’s the one mindin’ the lorry, she’ll not buy from him," a young man was telling his friend. "And it’s ‘hallo, Mister Murphy’ and ‘thank you kindly, Mister Murphy,’ whenever we should meet. I tell you …"

"Aye, you’ve told me a dozen times and more," said his victim sceptically. "I think you’re mad, man, wanting to marry a witch!"

Sirius’ ears pricked up.

His muttonchopped friend, noticing his interest, grinned at him; a friendly, if slightly gap-toothed grin.

"That’s Pat Murphy over there jawing away. Him that’s in love with the fairy girl."

There were hoots of laughter from those nearest. Pat Murphy flushed red, and Sirius grinned.

"What fairy girl?" he asked, partly because he knew his neighbour wanted to tell him, but mostly because he actually wanted to hear.

"Aye, she comes down to the market every Saturday, and a right odd-looking wee bit she is, too. Never tells her name, barely says a word." He thumbed some tobacco into a pipe and struck a match. "She pays good money, though. Bought up all of my wife’s homespun last week. She’s just some queer girl from Clifden, o’course, but the way she appears and disappears, you’d swear she was magic!"

"Aye, you never see her coming, never see her going beyond the bend in the road," put in someone else.

"And I’ll be marryin’ her one fine day," announced Pat Murphy, anxious to get back to the matter at hand.

Sirius grinned with his mouth, and started humming under his breath a good old Newfoundland song that began, Oh the night that Paddy Murphy died is the night I’ll never forget …

"Brown hair?" he asked the man with muttonchops, ignoring Pat. "Glasses? Built like the Venus de Botticelli only shorter? Always wears black?"

Whiskers’ eyes widened, and so did those of the men on either side of them.

"Will you listen to that, boys!" he called to the rest of the bar. "He knows our mystery lass!"

There was a roar of surprised chatter, most of it directed at Sirius.

"Well how about that?"

"Uncanny, I calls it!"

"The man's lying!"

"You watch your back, Pat, or Blackie here’ll be after you, boy!"

Under the surf-like roar, Sirius hurriedly asked Whiskers, "Listen, mate, do you know which direction she takes when she leaves?"

"Looking for her, are you?" chortled Whiskers. "Now I’m seeing a right faerie tale and no mistake!"

"Which way?" asked Sirius again, trying to keep his patience.

Whiskers rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Now she always comes from the bogs, and goes back that way, too. So if you’re seeking her, you’d best be starting out that way." He jabbed vaguely in the direction of the road with the stem of his pipe. Sirius’ heart sank a little. He would have asked more, but someone was prodding him in the arm.

"Here, here, how come you knows the faerie lass, eh?" the someone demanded. Sirius looked around, and found himself staring Pat Murphy in the eye. He was a good-looking young fellow with a strong chin, rosy cheeks, and black curls that hung boyishly into a pair of eyes as blue as the sea. Sirius would never admit it to himself, but he felt sallow, ungainly and mean, staring into this fresh-faced visage. Pat, however, felt much the same about the wolfish stranger, with his great black eyes and lank dark hair, already beginning to dry in the saturating heat from the fireplace.

Sirius cocked his head a little and seriously considered turning Pat Murphy - just very briefly - into a cockroach. Then he had a better idea.

"Maybe I’m a faerie myself, eh?" he needled. When the laughter came, he chortled the loudest, throwing his head back and showing his teeth. In mid-laugh, his form flickered and then he simply wasn’t there anymore. His fellow drinkers startled away from where he’d been like frightened birds, and Pat Murphy fell right off his stool.

Outside, Sirius was already astride his motorbike, and speeding away into the tawny, rainlashed half-light of evening.

Bearing in mind what one of the men had said about Peg never being seen past the bend in the road outside of the village, that was where he began his search. He dismounted, forcing his kickstand into position with a creaky clank, and, after a careful look up and down the spattering road, he slipped into dog form. His first impression, upon taking one sniff of the damp air, was that his chances of finding Peg’s scent anywhere in this downpour were slim to none. The rain was now driving down so hard that the road was no longer a road, but merely a long streak of mud that spat droplets into the air with every watery blow. Yet he persevered, sniffing despondently at the dripping brush until he got water in his nose and had to sit a moment to sneeze it out.

Then, like a beam of light breaking through the olfactory clouds, he caught a hint of that familiar scent. To one side of the road, the brush had been crushed down in a path. Mud coated the bottom of it, and the grasses bent dripping heads over it, but here and there a few blades had been left dry, and these held those few precious traces of Peg’s presence. Snuffling excitedly, he continued on a few steps, and swiftly ascertained that if she’d gone anywhere short of into the clouds, this was the direction she’d have taken. Excited now, he leaped back into his human body and rushed back to collect his bike.

Getting the huge, awkward motorbike along that slim rabbit trail was hell, and Sirius never quite knew how he managed it without flying into a temper. Perhaps it was that the level of exhaustion had now risen so high that temper was impossible: there was only dogged perserverence.

Hope rose as he topped a hillock and found himself looking at an unnaturally neat copse of dark pines. He slid and slithered down the slope (falling twice, which didn’t make much difference to the state of his jeans), dragging his bike, only to find that there was no way in hell that bike was getting through those tightly-woven trees. He bit his lip and felt piteous, but in the end he simply crammed the motorbike under the overhanging branches, and dove in himself. Several agonising minutes of ripping tangles and strong-smelling sap, and he was through, into a tiny clearing, bordered on one side by the trees, and on the other by a cliff. In the middle of it stood, like a beacon of hope, a fine white cottage with turfy thatch and a little red door.

When he knocked on the door, however, no one answered.

"Bloody hell!" Sirius vented his feelings with a few choice oaths beyond that, then, feeling more downtrodden than he had all day, he sat down on a stone just under the overhang of the thatch to wait. It was like Peg to be out, wandering around in the wet and the mud at her own leisure while she should have been expecting a guest, he thought bitterly. The partial shelter of the thatch was turning out to be no shelter at all: the weave of the straw stalks directed all the water falling on the roof down and off, and incidentally down his neck as well. This dampened his spirits still further; and, as he had arrived at that point of total depression in which one prefers to wallow in one’s wrongs rather than try to right them, so he did nothing about it.

Dark had fallen completely by this time, and he reflected sadly that if Peg were not to turn up, he’d have to stay in this wretched spot all night, for any attempt to find his way back to the village would probably result in him and his bike being lost and sunk in a pothole within five minutes. Although he felt that drowning in a bog would be something of an improvement on his current situation, he hated the idea of his shining bike being destroyed in that manner.

An angry screech, uttered by an invisible mouth, jolted him out of his meditations. The screech was followed by its unseen owner, which flapped and scratched at him in a most determined manner. He leapt up, swatting at the mysterious thing. It drew away for a moment, then attacked from another angle. Sirius swore like a sailor as something sharp narrowly missed his eye, and finally shot off a bolt of magic. It had no more effect than to briefly illuminate the tar-like darkness, destroying his night vision utterly. Nevertheless, he shot off another one, and this time was rewarded by a strangled squawk and the sound of something hitting the grass nearby. Groping blindly at his feet, he touched feathers, and picked the thing up.

It was an enormous, fat hoodie-crow, completely paralysed so that even his beak was frozen open in mid-squawk. His furious little eyes were the only things that moved, glaring at Sirius, who grinned savagely back.

"Oh, I remember you, mate. You’re right lucky you didn’t end up plucked. I’ll take this as a sign your mistress is on her way."

The crow made furious gurgling noises in his throat, but Sirius wasn’t listening. He was feeling much better now that he had forced misery on someone else; he cocked his head to one side, listening intently, and soon he was rewarded by the sound of a woman’s voice.

"Scald? SCALD." She was speaking in Irish. "Where are you off to, you miserable bird? You know you’ll not get inside without me."

By squinting, Sirius could make out a little dark patch detaching itself from the black ring of trees. She saw him first, though, and froze.

"Peg?" he called.

There was a pause, and then:

"Sirius? Sirius! I’d not thought you’d come today!"

She was running towards him, hiking up her skirts, with a muddy canvas bag swinging wildly from one shoulder. He spread his arms wide and caught her up. Her lips were just as cold as his, but her embrace was hugely comforting. She caught his face in both hands, and felt his sodden hair and prickly two-day stubble.

"Jesus, luv, you’re wet through! And how long have you been waitin’ out here for me, eh?"

"No wetter than you, woman. And I haven’t been waiting all that long."

"I’ll never forgive myself if you take a chill. Come in, come in." She rapped thrice on the door near the knob, and it opened obligingly. "What’ve you done with Scaldcrow, by the by? I’m sure I heard him yell."

"Oh, I’ve got him here." Sirius held out the paralysed crow. "Nothing much wrong with him, but I’m a bit afraid to let him loose. Look what he did to me the first time, before I froze him." He tapped his cheekbone, where blood was welling and mixing with the rainwater coursing down his face.

"He did that? Scald, you bad bird!" Peg took Scaldcrow from him, and put him down on the little table near the window. The crow made more gurgling noises, but she ignored him. The room was dark, but warm, and filled with the rich smell of stew, which was coming from beneath the lid of the cauldron hanging over the banked peat fire. Peg bustled around, ignoring the drips that spotted the floor from Sirius’ clothing and her own, building up the fire and lighting candles. Then she rooted around in the linen cupboard set into the wall by the fireplace and came up with two rough, warm towels, one of which she handed to him.

"Just fling your wet things in the hallway and I’ll have them dealt with," she told him, and then bustled off down the dark hallway to what Sirius assumed must be her bedroom.

He stripped off his soaking clothes and flung them out into the hall, where they made a sodden thwack on the flagstones; then he dried himself vigorously, wrapped the towel round his waist, and sat down with his back to the fire to soak up its warmth. He was now at leisure to examine the room, which, he found upon looking, was a very interesting room indeed.

Judging by the size of the cottage from the outside, there should have been very little floorspace within, but something on the inside belied that cramped appearance. The kitchen and sitting room that he was in now should have easily taken up the whole of the house: it was broad and, though low-ceilinged, pleasantly open. The floor was flagged, but this was only visible in the kitchen area. The rest of it was mostly covered by a fine broad carpet woven in glowing colours - crimson, blue, gold and tawny - and embroidered with looping freestyle botanical designs, interspersed with regulated panels of interlace and fantastical animals. The windows were larger than he would have guessed from the outside; two looked back on the pines and the clearing, and one, situated on an adjacent wall, would give a lovely view of the sea in daylight. Their sills were honey-coloured, knotty pine, and broad enough to sit on. The walls, instead of being mere whitewashed stone, were panelled with dark red, fragrant cedar, polished to a gleam.

The sitting room sported a fat, squashy sofa covered with a chenille throw-rug in autumnal colours, and two chairs, one with a green cushion, one with a red. A draughtsman’s table stood over by the window that faced the sea, piled with sketching paper; near it, though not in full view of the window, was a loom, strung in soft brown colours: dark brown like turned earth, reddish-brown like horse chestnuts, and fawny-gold like autumn oak leaves.

In one corner lay a whole collection of musical instruments: a great black-wood Celtic harp, a rather smaller Spanish harp, a bodhran, a guitar, a mandolin, a nyckelharpa, a set of Uilleann pipes, an array of various flutes in metal and wood, and another skin drum that Sirius vaguely recognised as a Nuu-cha-nulth ceremonial drum, all the way from British Columbia.

A few neatly-framed watercolours and oil-paintings and a charcoal drawing or two adorned the walls. He stepped up to admire one of them, and as he did, a flicker of movement in the hall caught his eye:

A skinny little creature with perfectly black skin was crouching over Sirius’ clothes and bundling them up under its arm.

Sirius gave a yell; the little thing leapt a foot in the air and scurried off faster than Sirius could follow, still carrying his clothes.

"What is it?" called Peg’s muffled voice from down the hall.

"Jesus, you’ve got demons in here!"

He thought he heard distant laughter.

"Oh, that’s just Vishni. He does for me. Dusting and washing and such; everyday things."

"The damn thing took my clothes!" Sirius yelled back.

"Aye, and he’ll have them back dry as a cornshook in a few minutes, you see if he doesn’t."

And indeed, within five minutes, Vishni crept apologetically out of the shadows and presented Sirius with his clothes, neatly folded, and an ingratiating grin.

"Er . . . thanks."

Vishni bowed - he was a bizarre looking thing, with enormous black eyes with no whites visible around them, protruding front teeth, and bronze lights to his slick black skin - and scurried out of sight again.

Sirius struggled into his clothes - they were quite clean, dry, and wonderfully warm - and not a minute later heard Peg call, "Are you decent?"

"Yeah."

She came back, wearing a simple black gown, indistinguishable from the one she’d been wearing before, except that it was dry, and a dark red séal, embroidered with interlace in black thread, thrown around her shoulders. She looked as completely relaxed as if she hadn't just come from what must have been an entire day out tramping about, one which had ended with unseasonable cold and black rain. Picking up Scaldcrow, who had been lying stiff as a board on the table throughout this time, she turned him about in her hands, a great black frozen feather-duster.

"Well, boyo?" she addressed the crow. "Are you going to behave yourself?"

Sirius couldn’t understand the slight gurgling squeak that the crow made, but Peg must have found some sense in it, because she gave an approving nod, and snapped her fingers. Scaldcrow flapped his wings, gave Sirius an evil look, and flopped sullenly over to his perch by the fire, where he sat hunched like a vulture, glaring out at the world with indiscriminate ill-will.

Sirius’ appetite had sprung to ravening life at the first sniff of the stew, and he practically slavered at the mouth as he watched Peg draw blue pottery bowls from a cupboard in the kitchen and fill them from the blackened pot over the fire. The stew itself was thick and savoury, rich with potato and shellfish, and the chunks of bread that went with it were soft and fresh. Peg watched, wide-eyed, over her own spoon as the level in Sirius’ first bowl dwindled rapidly.

"Good gracious, man, when did you last eat?" she asked incredulously.

"Mmmph …" Sirius chased down a scrap of bread with a draught of sweet home-made bog-myrtle beer. "I had a bite before I left this morning … I think."

"And when was that, exactly?" purred Peg.

"Er … six o’clock."

Peg studied him for a moment, then got up and filled his bowl right to the brim. "Take the rest of the bread, too," she said, "good heavens, I’m surprised you didn’t perish from hunger halfway here."

"Arph," said Sirius, around another spoonful.

While he ate, Peg filled another, smaller bowl with stew, poured a beaker of water from the pitcher by the washbasin, and carried them into the hall, where she left them, sitting on a flagstone. Sirius guessed that they were for Vishni, and sure enough, when her back was turned, he caught sight of a tiny flicker of movement in the shadows. The next moment, bowl and beaker were gone.

"Why do you feed him in the hall?’ he asked curiously. "Can’t he come in here?"

"Oh, he’s free to go anywhere in the house," said Peg, sitting back down to her own bowl, "he just don’t like it in here, is all. It’s all the luxury and the warmth - particularly the wood panelling. Vishni doesn’t like wood; he prefers stone, and water, too, come to that. You may have noticed I gave him water, not beer or milk, with his stew."

"Weird little thing," Sirius told his soup spoon.

"Yes, well, he probably thinks you’re weird, too," Peg needled good-naturedly. "All hairy and pink and musky-smelling."

"I do not smell musky."

"Yes you do, laddie. You stank like a wet fox earlier."

"Ouch. That’s not fair."

Peg relented. "It’s not so bad. I like it, myself," this with the same salacious grin that he’d been walloped many a time for using on her. Sirius, who couldn’t think of a retaliatory remark strong enough, took another drink of beer.

Peg made a great fuss later on that night over sleeping arrangements. Through some rarely called-upon talent for the theatrical, she managed to conjure up an incredible show of scurrying about looking for sheets and pillows, rejecting the sofa as far too short (and indeed, Sirius' legs would have overhung it to the knees), the floor as too hard. When Sirius, honestly puzzled by her fuss, remarked that they could simply pile a few rugs together and he could sleep on them, she turned her attention to the rooms, stating that the sitting room was too big, the kitchen too cold, the studio too crowded, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum.

"Of course, you're forgetting the most obvious solution," he said drily as she bustled past, looking for a spare pillow-slip. He followed as she threw open the door to the big flagged room where most of the cheese-making and butter-churning, cloth-scalding and herb-drying took place.

"And that is?" said Peg, her head concealed in a cupboard beneath a big bog-oak table. She made a great show of tossing a pile of folded cloths out behind her, like a dog digging a hole.

Sirius sidled up beside her and put his hands on her hips.

Peg suddenly went still, then backed out of her burrow and stood up. He followed her motion by sliding his hands up to her waist, then wrapped his arms completely around her.

"Ahhh, o' course, how could I forget that?" she tittered, and then rattled on: "Such an obvious solution and here I never thought of it - why, I must be getting old . . . "

"Peg, you are mad. Bloody barking mad."

As suddenly as if her spine had been abruptly removed, Peg relaxed: she leaned against him and turned her head languidly under his chin.

"But I'm just having a bit of a game with you, love. Of course I'm not mad."

"You bloody are!" said Sirius, bending down and giving a little grunt as he hoisted her up in his arms. She burst out into cackling laughter. "Do you see what I mean?" he demanded as he carried her out of the dairy and down the hall towards her bedroom, she chortling like the Wicked Witch of a fairy tale the entire way. "I've known cats do exactly what you just did, scuttling about as if the world's going to end, and then suddenly flopping down as if they just don't care -" kicking her bedroom door open, stumping across the room, and flopping down on her bed, which gave a little squeal "- tilted as buoys, the lot of you."

He busily set about unlacing Peg's gown, but with another throaty cackle, she shoved him off and did it herself. She got up and strode like an undraped and rather plump Athena across the room to hang the garment upon one of a long series of wooden pegs behind the door. Then she set about unpinning her coiled bun.

Sirius, however, having divested himself of his clothes, came up behind her and gently took over the task. He uncoiled the rope of shining nut-brown hair and separated it into strands with his fingers, smoothing it over her shoulders. As he did this, Peg reached up and behind her head, caught his wrists, and drew him back towards her bed.

It was difficult to say exactly who finally dragged whom into the bed (which was a slim cotton mattress that would only just take two people instead of one), but eventually both found themselves there. They burrowed down under the Peg-scented bedclothes and curled up as close together as arms and legs could manage.

Just a few moments before things got really interesting, however, Peg suddenly sat bolt upright.

"What? What?" Sirius demanded, surfacing as well.

"You contradicted yourself, Sirius Black," said she sternly. "You called me barking mad, and then you compared me to a cat. Cats don't bark."

With a snort Sirius reached up, pulled her down, and kissed her into silence.