Chapter Text
I.
Sirius Black decided to commit suicide on a sunny day, sitting at Fortescues', drinking his cappuccino and greeting a group of friendly people passing him by.
This idea of ending his life didn't hit him in any spectacular way, like it has always been described in famous novellas. Neither did it occur to him in a moment of sudden enlightenment, of which Muggle religions are so fond. Rather, this thought simply appeared in his mind without any pathos or drama and thus, it felt right.
As soon as he steeled his resolve, Sirius called the waiter, paid his bill and left the café as unhurriedly as if tomorrow he would be occupying the same chair at the same table. Keeping the same unhurried tempo to his walk, Sirius headed down the Alley, smiling at the people around him, until he reached the corner of Knockturn Alley where an Apothecary had resided since anyone could remember. As the rumour went - whispered secretly behind spread-out fans, and hats drawn discreetly in front of mouths - a person in great distress could buy there whatever he or she desired, just by placing the right amount of galleons onto the dusty counter.
A short time later Sirius emerged from the shop, hiding a small phial in the pocket of his coat. With those same unhurried steps he reached the respectable part of the Wizarding world and headed toward the Leaky Cauldron.
Since the Veil spat him out two years ago and since the trial freed him of all charges, he lived above the pub in a small rented room with a large window overseeing Diagon Alley. The room was very modest: the furniture looked shabby, the carpet remembered better times and the bathroom Sirius had to share with other guests on that floor. On the other hand, the food down in the pub tasted like heaven and each evening Sirius got visited by a black cat named Albert which belonged Maud Muddyslime - old, ugly, slightly senile but otherwise a very nice chambermaid.
Closing the door behind him, Sirius put the phial of potion onto the night table, next to the latest - albeit still unread - copy of the Daily Prophet. Hanging his coat in the wardrobe, Sirius pulled down his shoes and stretched himself on the bed. Determined to proceed with his plan, Sirius unstopped the phial and emptied it in one sip. The salesman in the Apothecary told him that it might take about twenty minutes until the potion was going to work. Then death should proceed fast, without any pain.
Throwing a quick look at the room which had been his home for the last two years of his life, Sirius found to his satisfaction that the place looked clean and tidy. At least, he thought, there will be no clichéd reports about insane Sirius Black passing out in a stinking hole, surrounded by uncountable emptied bottles of Firewhisky and full ashtrays, spilling over with still-glowing fags. Although, thinking about it, certain events in his life were reason enough for Sirius to solve them with alcohol and cigarettes.
Tonight, Sirius refused to think about them anymore. They belonged to the past, as Sirius himself will, once the potion started working.
Then acting on a sudden impulse, Sirius decided to leave Maude the chambermaid one thousand Galleons. The old girl worked hard her whole life, and a nice sum of money would be something she well deserved.
Sirius stood up from his bed, found a pen and a piece of parchment in the drawer. Sitting down into the chair, he wrote a short note that Miss Maud Muddyslime should be paid the aforementioned money from Sirius' account at Gringotts. The rest of the money, as well as the newly restored house at the 12 Grimmauld Place would go to his godson Harry Potter. Adding the date and his name, Sirius left the parchment just next to the dropped pen and returned to his bed, swaying slightly.
It works indeed, he thought, dropping heavily onto the mattress. His head spun slightly and he felt dizzy. Yet to his disappointment the dizziness eased, once his head hit the pillow. He felt a bit weak, though, so perhaps the end was approaching anyway.
If the man in the Apothecary was right, and the clock onto the mantel piece worked properly, then Sirius still had about ten minutes left. Waiting passively for anything to happen had never been his thing, so Sirius reached for the paper on his night table. He has been buying the Daily Prophet just out of habit. He had lost interest in any news long time ago; only the crosswords still drew his attention. A good occupation for killing long and lonely evenings in his room. Yet tonight, while waiting for his death to slowly arrive, it seemed to be his only option to skim some pages. Just looking at the photos, Sirius assured himself. Nothing more.
Ignoring the politics - the want-to-be wise babble of the Wizengamot was boring him to death - Sirius flipped the pages straight to the sports section. The articles there were full of heated debate about the upcoming Quidditch World Cup in which the most eligible seeker in Britain was going to play for Australia. Sirius grinned. Serves them right, those idiots, for driving Harry away. Moving to Down Under was the best decision Harry could have made after Snaky-Face hit the grass and his Minions followed him immediately thereafter.
On the photo Harry ignored the Snitch for a moment and waved at Sirius. Sirius smiled back, trying to turn the page with his trembling hands . The potion was working already. Sirius started sweating, the tips of his fingers growing cold and not obeying fully. After some fumbling and cursing Sirius managed to flip the page just to reveal the society section and with that a certain article which made him to throw the paper to the bottom with an angry, "Just great!"
Remembering that he was dying, Sirius picked the paper up, after he took some ragged breaths. He was going to die, he reminded himself while looking at the photo of Remus and Tonks, smiling at each other. Who cares? This hadn't mattered to him in months and thus he could read this article as well. Soon, it will all be over anyway.
Sirius never got to read the headline, for right at that moment the letters blurred, his head spun and a cold wave of dizziness overcame him, which was the last thing he remembered, apart from the thought that death actually was a long, peaceful sleep. And if anything came thereafter it would be a totally different story.
~*~
Sirius heard voices around him. They might belong to four people, perhaps five; he couldn't tell. Angry voices, then nervous ones, shouting orders. Some crying voices were there too and soothing ones, trying to calm the crying ones down. Was this the afterlife? Sirius wondered. The surrounding cacophony of noise was the opposite to the silent eternity Sirius had experienced when he fell though the Veil, years ago.
He couldn't open his eyes which made him wonder at first then grow a little irritated. He tried to move his arms but couldn't do that either. The same went for his legs and the rest of his body.
"He is awake," one of the commanding voices said.
"It's about time," another voice replied. "We almost lost him."
"What are you going about the Bodybind spell?"
"It will fade in just five minutes. By that time the sleeping draught will already be working. Let me know when he awakes."
I'm alive! Sirius thought in panic before he lost consciousness again.
II.
The nurses' dormitory of St. Mungo's was in the hospital basement. A row of tiny rooms, big enough to contain one bed, various hooks to hang robes on and a small sink for morning ablutions. Toilets and bathrooms were shared by the floor. The payment was rather a joke, but it included three warm meals a day from the hospital kitchen and free medical treatment in case of illness or emergency. Remus used this as a reminder of why he let himself to be hired to work as an orderly.
Since the release of new regulations on werewolves' employment, he wasn't the only one of his kind scrubbing the floors, gathering the dirty laundry and washing the bed pans. During the full moon St. Mungo's opened the lycantropy ward - a row of dark, dank cells protected with heavy spells and silencing charms, where Remus and the other members of his kind could change.
Washing the soap off his face, Remus looked at his picture in the mirror which hung above the sink. There were still two weeks remaining until the trial would start all over again.
He looked at the watch, lying onto the night table. There was just time enough to put on his working clothes and grab some bread and coffee in the breakfast room. His last shift lasted late into the night. With several urgent cases in Accident and Emergency and his two colleagues reporting ill, Remus felt like he was being hit with a brick wall.
A little sleepy and a lot grumpy, Remus sipped his morning coffee with large, eager gulps. Actually he didn't like this brew. To be honest, he straight-out hated it. He drank it only for the caffeine shock which managed to push him to full wakefulness in the shortest time possible.
And because the tea at St. Mungo's was an abomination.
"Rough night, eh?" said a voice opposite him. Remus forced to lift up his eyelids. Janush - the male nurse from the ward for mental maladies - smiled at him, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.
Remus returned his gaze back to his mug. "Yeah, three disembodiments because of incorrect Apparition in two hours. Those people are crazy!"
"Don't drink and Apparate!"
"That's what I meant."
Janush abandoned his plate and poured himself a large cup of coffee. "Still, the *very last* patient was admitted after you were gone." He took a gulp, pausing to increase Remus' curiosity. For regardless how tired Remus was and how much he hated the mornings in the hospital, he always yearned to know what happened in Emergency. During the last weeks Janush already managed to figure that out.
Remus sighed in dismay. "All right, all right. What happened after I was gone?"
"A man attempted suicide by the Leaky Cauldron. Took a potion yet got discovered by a chamber maid, at the last moment. She might be a hysterical old spinster, but she was smart enough to call the medics. They worked on him for hours. First they had to find out what the chap actually took, then they had to prevent him going over to other side. He nearly managed it three times."
"Three times is the charm." Remus murmured into his coffee.
"Yeah. In the end they got him, if you know what I mean."
Remus nodded. "Is he in your ward, right now?"
"Yep, restrained but alive. Pumped full of sedatives, through."
Remus grunted. "Sometimes I don't understand them. How is taking your life the solution?"
Janush shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows what's going on in someone's head? I heard he is sort of a celebrity or something. The papers might be full of it today."
Remus waved it off. Celebrities and their pitiful dramas! Himself, he had enough on his hands. His life lay in shards and the only relief these days was to scrub the dirty floors of St. Mungo's - the activity made his head pleasantly empty. Who knows, probably he would end like up this poor bloke, lying in Janush's ward.
At least it was quite pleasant to chat with Janush, since the man came from Armenia to Britain about six month ago and the gossip of the British Wizarding world meant nothing to him.
Remus buttered himself a toast. "Going to sleep now?"
"No. I'm going to my regular shift. Need the money, you know."
Again, Remus nodded. Janush left a wife and three children back in Armenia. And since he wasn't permitted to work as a Medi-wizard he had to deal with the low payment of a nurse in the ward for mental maladies. Damn the immigration policy!
Remus swallowed the bite. "Need help? I can switch my assignment with Rufus."
Janush grinned. "Thanks, that would be great."
Remus grinned back and poured himself another mug of the hated coffee. The ward for mental maladies was a very strenuous place, but working with Janush was okay.
Drinking the horrible tasting brew, Remus finally woke up.
~*~
The schedule in the ward for mental maladies was tightly controlled.
After the patients finished their breakfast, they were led into the St. Mungo's garden. As Janush explained to Remus one day, moving about in the fresh air and the contact with the nature helped progress the mental healing. Or, at least, in the more hopeless cases, this schedule kept them stabilised. Therefore this fresh air routine occurred every day, except when there were storms about, which negatively affected some of the more labile minds.
Helping the people into their coats, Janush headed toward a separate staircase, which kept the patients shielded from the rest of the hospital. Whether for their own privacy or - more likely - for the safety of the other patients, Remus couldn't tell.
Pausing in his work for a moment, Remus watched the group following Janush like a bunch of confused ducks. Frank and Alice, each holding onto each other with one hand, and clutching empty candy wrappings in the other. Gilderoy Lockhart, wearing a royal blue coat and bright pink bunny slippers, was followed by Hilda, who never spoke a word, and Ray, who in his darker times saw burning lizards crawling up the walls. There was Benny, whose scull got cracked during a fight in a pub, reducing a three hundred pound man into a five year old child. Niobe with a bleeding soul, since her children were killed by the death eaters in front of her eyes. Breathtakingly beautiful Larisa, suicidal since childhood. And at the tail end of the crowd, Jesùs Maria Jose Caròn, whose real name was John Smith. He tended to have a Muggle bible in his hand and nothing on his body. The medication in his morning tea made sure he put on at least some underwear.
Shaking his head, Remus grabbed the nearest tray. The ward for mental maladies was a surreal place. It was causing goose bumps on Remus' forearms, reminding him sometimes of the too narrow path on which Remus had balanced, several times in his life, those few occasions when Remus found himself to be frighteningly close to the other side of reality.
Luckily enough, he always remembered all those solid things, all those dreadfully boring yet important daily routines, which always helped him to manage the crisis. Collecting dirty dishes, for example. Changing sheets, scrubbing the floors and the toilets, putting away the toys in the common rooms, knowing they would be tossed around, once the patients would return.
Putting the toybox into the corner, Remus looked out of the window. St. Mungo's garden was a beautiful place. There was a small lake in the middle with golden fishes and blossoming water lilies. Several old trees threw pleasant shadows, and the flower beds blossomed from early spring to the late autumn. Remus spotted Janush sitting onto one of the benches, talking quietly to Alice then accepting the candy wrapper from her outstretched hand. Alice laughed in delight, turned and went running back to Frank.
Remus averted his face. He still couldn't quiet deal with the sight of his former friends living forever in their own little world. The doctors, nurses, Remus, even their own son were some vaguely remembered and easily forgotten intruders.
Down in the garden Janush stood up, calling the patients together into one group. The single hour of fresh air was over. Remus scanned the common room quickly, then picked up Jesùs' clothes, lying discarded next to the piano. Jesùs would put them on freely, once his second dose of medication kicked in. Passing the mysterious Celebrity's room, he stopped for a moment, listening to the even breathing inside. He still didn't know who the man was. Janush hadn't provide the name badge for the door, yet, and Remus had waved off every further offer of information. It was just one room less to be cared for.
Five minutes later the crowd walked through the door, each member of the group, heading toward his or her favourite table. Remus and Janush helped them out of their coats. Remus then served water and medications, waiting patiently until they were taken. Niobè drank her potion spasmodically, as always. Larisa batted her long, long lashes but neither Remus or Janush could be fooled by her charm. Benny always made a fuss, since his medication tasted a tad bitter. Luckily for him, Janush provided a spoonful of sugar today. Looking out of the corner of his eye, Remus spotted Jesùs pulling on his robe. Excellent. Unfortunately, Frank seemed to be a bit stubborn today. Perhaps if Remus brought Alice to his table…
Remus looked around.
"Alice?"
"Perhaps she went into her room?" Janush suggested, still holding a goblet with potion under Gilderoy's nose. Lockhart made an offended face, as always when he was in his best diva mood.
"I'll go to fetch her." Remus put the bowl with pills out of Frank's reach and stood up.
Frank's and Alice's room was the third one on the left. To his surprise Remus found the room to be empty.
"Alice?"
Surely she didn't leave the ward? The entrance was heavily guarded, and every move carefully monitored by special charms.
"Alice?"
The door to the Celebrity's room, farther to the right stood open. Remus headed in. "Alice, come on, time for your medication."
Alice didn't react. She stood looking with the curiosity of a child at the man, lying tied to the bed.
Remus approached her, tugging gently on her shoulder. "Alice come o…"
The rest of his sentence died off. Like in a trance Remus stood there, watching Alice's pale fingers tracing Sirius' face, the contours of Sirius' nose, the hollows of his cheeks and the strands of tousled hair. Alice was humming a random melody Remus couldn't recognise.
Sirius' eyes lids fluttered open, the foggy look clearing rapidly with confusion about the surroundings, unknown to him.
Their eyes met. Sirius frowned slightly. Remus' heart stopped for the second time.
"Remus! Here you are!" Janush stormed into the room impatiently.
Remus stirred. "He… is awake…"
"I see. I'm going to call Dr. Watson, then. Now, get Alice out of here, you know Frank grows restless without her presence."
"Yeah…" Still in a trance, Remus left, dragging the humming Alice behind him. She followed him a bit reluctantly, leaving a candy wrapper on Sirius' chest.
Sitting her down next to Frank, Remus handed them both their pills. They took them slowly one by one, chewing, swallowing, washing them down with water. The whole time Remus kept his attention focused dutifully on the task. Behind his back he could hear hurried footsteps rushing towards Sirius' room.
Janush peered in. "Finished?"
Remus nodded, standing up. "Er… look," he said pointing at the pile of dirty laundry. "Maybe I should take care of these. And then I'll make a stop in the kitchen. You said something about Jesùs not being able to stand any meat recently."
"Sure, whatever… you all right, Remus?"
"Yeah, yeah… just you know… full moon, it's going to be getting close soon."
Janush just nodded solemnly, not saying anything further.
Levitating the large bundle of dirty laundry, Remus guided it towards the staircase, then down five floors into the cellar, where he added it to the large pile of other stale and smelling bundles. Only then, on dropping it, he felt a sudden urge to curl onto the floor into a tight ball - a defence against the world and everything else as well.
It happened to him several times in his life. Once was when James and Lily were murdered. Again, when Sirius fell through the Veil.
~*~
The door behind the male nurse closed, leaving Sirius alone, tied to the bed.
Still dizzy from the drugs and, actually, not knowing what else he should do, Sirius closed his eyes again. He listened to the angry buzz of a fly, searching for a way out of the room. He dozed for a while until a soft sound of the door being opened and closed again, woke him up.
"Mr. Black…"
Sirius turned his head. The woman's face hovering above his own was still young. Probably in her late twenties or early thirties and still quite pretty. He noticed curly dark blond hair tied up at the back of her head and a pair of sharp eyes looking down at him, shielded by a pair of glasses.
"I'm Doctor Watson," the woman said.
Sirius nodded, hardly caring about courtesy while he was tied to the bed. "Where am I?"
"In the ward for mental maladies at St. Mungo's."
"Great…"
Dr. Watson let it pass without any comment.
"How long have I been here?"
"You were delivered last night. Miss Muddyslime found you when she was looking for her cat and called us. We almost lost you."
"I wouldn't blame anyone if you did."
Dr. Watson smiled faintly. Just a little ironical smile, tilting her head. "Really?"
Sirius looked away. "Why bother?"
"We are keeping our oath, Mr. Black."
"We…?"
Dr. Watson nodded. "Myself and my colleagues in this hospital."
Sirius snorted. Oath, emergency… Damn Maud and her bloody cat! Why can't things in Sirius' life go as he wished them? Just this once?
"Now what? Should I stay shackled to this bloody bed for all of eternity?"
"No, these are just a temporary precaution. The nurse will give you another dose of sleeping draught. Please, don't fight him or he will have use force. Tomorrow you might be strong enough to stay up, so we can start then."
"Start what?"
"Looking for any possible reason to continue your life now that we've brought you back."
"Bloody hell, I didn't ask you to!"
"I know," Dr. Watson replied before she left the room.
~*~
Dr. Watson kept her word. When Sirius woke up the next morning, the shackles were open, hanging loose from the bed, just in case they were needed again.
Sitting up in his bed, Sirius finally got a proper view of his room. It was rather small with a single, closed window, the walls painted pale green. A sink stood in one corner, a night stand next to Sirius bed. A bag with Sirius' things was placed next to the wardrobe.
The door opened and a nurse - female this time - walked in, carrying a tray with breakfast and medication.
"Dr. Watson said you may use cutlery." The nurse said, while placing the tray on Sirius' lap. "You must eat at least something."
Sirius eyed the tray with disgust. Porridge (he hated porridge!), scrambled eggs, toast, jam... tea?
"I don't want to have to feed you," the nurse said encouragingly.
"Can I have at least some coffee?"
"If you prefer coffee, I'll send a message to the kitchen. Tomorrow you will get some."
Sighing, Sirius grabbed the fork and poked at the porridge, swallowing some of the greyish mass. He bit into the toast, washing it down with tea. Then he shoved the tray back into the woman's hands.
"I ate!"
To his surprise the nurse smiled indulgently. "That's all right. You don't have to eat everything. Now take the medication, please."
She watched the whole time that Sirius swallowed the pills. Then she handed him a piece of parchment. "Your appointment with Dr. Watson is at ten o'clock in her office. Janush will fetch you and bring you there.
"You are permitted to leave your room. The bathroom is at the end of the corridor. If you like, you can join the other patients in the common room." Reciting her sermon to the end, the nurse turned and breezed away.
Sirius sank back into the sheets. Now I'm really mad, he thought. All these whispers behind outstretched palms and heated speculations carried behind Sirius' back, had finally come true. This knowledge amused and infuriated him all at once. All these so-called normal people, living their boring normal, privileged lives and absorbed in their common, everyday problems had absolutely no idea!
Remus was the only exception. He understood most of this shit that Sirius was so full of. Or at least he tried to understand. Sadly, those were times when Remus had still been part of his life.
Feeling in no mood for any sort of company, Sirius spend the rest of the morning locked up in his room, not leaving his bed, except for a short trip to the bathroom. There he had been found by the male nurse - Janush, Sirius remembered - who flashed him a friendly smile and held up a robe, flexing the well developed muscles of his forearm, just in case, Sirius started getting strange ideas.
"No need to run around naked," Janush said, "We have already another patient for that kind of show."
Sirius scowled at him and pulled on the robe, not sparing any farther glances at the annoying man for the rest of the journey toward the Dr. Watson's office.
Janush knocked onto the door and after a soft "Enter!" he ushered Sirius in.
Dr. Watson was sitting behind her desk, writing something on a piece of parchment.
She motioned Sirius to come near. "Please, take a seat. I'm only going to finish the sentence."
Sirius dropped himself into the nearby chair just in time, when Dr. Watson's quill came to a stop. Putting it aside, she folded the fingers under her chin, looking at Sirius through the perfectly polished lenses of her glasses. "Well, how do you feel today?"
"Doctor Watson…"
"It's Penelope, please… My maiden name was Clearwater."
"Then you are my…" Sirius politely pretended to count his cousins once removed. There was certainly a connection between the Blacks and Clearwaters, though of what consequence, Sirius couldn't say.
"Well… I might be, then…"
Sirius watched her rolling out several parchments on her table. His case probably, he thought in dismay. All that detailed information, even the tiniest pieces, carefully written down in neat handwriting, put together with hours of hard work to result in one, big shattering diagnosis. Which Sirius knew beforehand: demented for all eternity.
Penelope frowned a little.
"Sirius, do you know why you are here…" A sentence sounding more like a statement than a question.
Sirius leaned himself back in his chair. "What do you want to hear from me?"
"Your answer."
Sirius chuckled. "Well, might it be because I'm… mad?"
Penelope's frown deepened. "No, because the law dictates that everyone who tries to commit suicide has to spend at least a month in this ward."
Sentenced once again, Sirius thought bitterly. "Our society is too much influenced by Muggles."
"Is that your point?"
"It was my life!"
"Death has never been any solution for any problem."
"I didn't ask anyone to be born!" Sirius realised he was shouting at her.
Penelope leaned forward. "What do you feel now?"
Sirius' looked at her, his eyes wide. Anger. For the first time since months he felt anger. An urge to throw that damned woman out of the window and these sodding parchments behind her.
Penelope leaned herself back in her chair. "I think that's enough for today. You can go now. We may meet tomorrow again."
Sirius stalked out, slamming the door behind him.
~*~
Like many people in love with their job, Penelope frequently forgot the time whenever she was working on an interesting case.
And what interesting case this one had been! Fascinating, complicated and challenging all at once.
Having an Azkaban survivor in her care was the wet dream of any psychiatrist. Not for the first time, since the man had been delivered into the hospital Penelope kept asking herself whether Sirius Black wouldn't be too big a case to chew on. On the other side she possessed plenty of determination and stubbornness, attitudes which had always helped her to find the right path.
They helped her to break with Percy Weasley, after she made it clear that having children and taking care of the household weren't in accord with her ideas about a fulfilled life. The same stubbornness helped her to survive her mother's wrath for dropping this very promising match and instead going to study - the scandal! - some dubious discipline at a Muggle university.
Having finally enough of her parents whining, Penelope moved out their house into the student dormitory. And although living among Muggles proved sometimes difficult and irritating, it never failed to fascinate her every day anew.
Penelope's stubbornness proved to be useful again, when announcing to her parents that she was going to marry Marc Watson - a half-blood squib, who was not only her professor but fully supported Penelope's plans to finish university and work for St. Mungo's as the first Muggle-qualified psychiatrist in the newly founded ward for mental maladies, a special project supported by the Ministry and its increasingly influential Muggle Affairs section.
Fully convinced of she was on the right path, Penelope threw herself into her work. Her parents were, to express it politely, very dismayed. So were as her colleagues at St. Mungo's, who were defending the well-known fact that there was absolutely nothing that a cheering charm and decent sleeping draught wouldn't mend; a wisdom all the wizards and witches remembering the good old pre-Voldemort times were clinging to like glue. Anything Muggle related was met with wrinkled noses and deep distrust.
Even after several years of hard work at St. Mungo's Penelope was still held to be a rather weird outsider with strange ideas, and no hope of ever being promoted. Until yesterday, that was, when the people from Emergency informed her about the new addition to her ward. Hearing about it, Penelope had to use all her self-restraint to not dance wildly on the ward floor. For getting a suicidal Sirius Black handed her over like a cookie on a silver plate was like winning the biggest jackpot in the history the Wizards' Lottery.
The soft chiming of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts.
"Hi!" she drawled in an intimate tone she deserved only for one person. "You know you shouldn't call me while I'm here. The Ministry…"
"Do they ever know what a cell phone is?"
"I can't fool Arthur Weasley forever by telling him this is a remote control for my TV set."
"And if I tell him that this I need to control my wife? Perhaps he will understand then."
Penelope smiled. "Yes, Master."
"How was your day?"
"He is difficult."
"Difficult…?"
"And arrogant and absolutely not in denial that he might be mad."
"Clever tactic."
"Indeed."
"And why am I getting the impression that you are enjoying this hopeless case?"
"Because boring things never attracted me."
"Right. What about an another interesting topic?"
"Which one?"
"A dinner, some wine, me for a company…"
"I have to work…"
"It's half past ten…"
"So late?"
"Uh-huh."
Penelope hesitated a bit. The prospect of food, decent wine and Marc was very tempting.
"… you need to be fresh in the next morning, since your newest patient is supposed to be challenging…"
Penelope's smile widened. "Just let me finish this paper. I will be home around eleven. All right?"
"All right. Bye, I love you." Marc hung up.
Penelope put her cell phone back into the pocket of her robe, but she didn't pick up the quill again. Instead she opened an envelope, containing photos of Sirius Black. She had managed to get them from a good friend who worked for the Prophet. She took the picture out one by one, placing them onto her desk.
There was a photo of young Sirius in his Hogwart's uniform. Then the 'MOST WANTED' poster which once hung in every window. A snapshot of Sirius, feeding a Hippogriff, lying on a canopy bed. Then a photo of Sirius' trial, an article from Quibbler attached to it.
Finally, there was a picture of Sirius sitting alone at the table in Leaky Cauldron. This one Penelope got from Miss Muddyslime - the old chamber maid. Handing it over to Penelope, the old woman kept repeating again and again how good Mr. Black had been to her. How well he cared for her cat, when she was at work and how generously she had been tipped by him for cleaning his room.
"He was so lonely, Madam Doctor. He never spoke a word about it, but I could see it on him."
Looking at the last picture longer than she intended Penelope dropped it with the others, blew out the candles and went home.