Wild Heart¹ ★ [Sirius Black]

Chapter 19

One month and a day had passed since the end of the latest year at Hogwarts and during that month Chloé had barely uttered a single word because of the irritating Mandrake leaf stuck to the side of her mouth. 

She had found a spell to stick it there permanently so that she didn't have to worry about it slipping out or choking on it, but unfortunately despite her best efforts she couldn't seem to find any way of improving its bitter, foul taste which had lingered for the entire time and completely ruined all of Chloé's meals. So naturally the Veela was very excited to finally be rid of this damned leaf.

With a relieved breath, Chloé had taken the leaf out and placed it back in the crystal vial Sirius had given it to her in, along with a strand of her silver hair. Then, the following morning at dawn she had trudged out into the vast gardens of her house to collect some dew from a place which neither sunlight nor feet had ever touched.

Luckily, she knew these gardens better than anyone else in her family and so it had been surprisingly easy to find the perfect spot. From her pocket she pulled out a silver teaspoon and collected the surface dew, which she added into the vial with her lead.

She then pocketed the vial and hurried back inside before anyone asked her what she was doing, and from her desk drawer she pulled out a rough piece of parchment.

Chérie,

Dew has been added.

Love,

Chloé

She handed the rolled up paper to her new owl, Emmett, and the Great Horned Owl took off into the blue sky with a loud squawk of happiness at his freedom from the house. Chloé watched him go and grinned to herself. Not long now.

★★★★

A week after that she had taken her vial out of its hiding place in the dark in a basket under her bed and added the final ingredient of a chrysalis of a Death-head's Hawk Moth, which Sirius had sent over after her last letter. She had no idea how he had obtained such a random thing from the darkness of Grimmauld Place, his home, but she guessed that he knew some dodgy people who could get it. After all Sirius was a popular guy and he knew people in all sorts of places. How else could you explain his seemingly endless supply of alcohol and cigarettes?

Chloé jumped as a booming crash echoed outside, and the rain began to hammer harder on her windows. The first electrical storm she had seen all summer, and now she was ready for this.

When the first streak of lightning had flashed across her sky she had sent a letter to Sirius to tell him how to access her floo network, directly connected to the fireplace in her bedroom.

Part of her worried that Emmett wouldn't get the letter to him in time given the brutal storm, but she had to hope.

Becoming an animagus wasn't exactly something she wanted to do on her own, but if Sirius couldn't make it then she had to. She didn't know how many more storms there would be this summer.

She paced up and down her carpet for probably hours, spending every moment praying that sooner or later he would turn up, but as the sky grew darker, her hopes faded.

However, then there was a rumble, and with a sudden bag Sirius shot out of her fireplace, spreading ash everywhere across her blue rug.

"Seriously?" she scowled

Sirius dusted himself off and hopped up. "Sorry about the rug. I thought your fireplace might have been taller I guess. I mean the Potter's is huge"

"Well in case you didn't realise, I don't exactly have many visitors through my fireplace" she retorted "Speaking of" she waved her wand at the fireplace, which glowed green for a moment, and then returned to its normal shade of red. "There. It's sealed. Now can we get on with this?"