The Miraculous Effects of Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Three

Anika lay awake in her bed for the rest of the night mulling over the events that had happened in the grounds.

If the dog had been Sirius, it only made sense that the other three animals were James, Peter and Remus. She assumed that the stag was James and the rat was Peter which meant that the wolf was Remus.

It had been a full moon.

Finally, it made sense why Remus was so often in the hospital wing with strange unexplained injuries, he was a werewolf. Remus was a werewolf and his three friends were anamagi. Anika wondered how much of it Dumbledore knew, she was sure that he knew about Remus but she wondered if the other three boys had gone through the process to become anamagi legally, somehow she doubted it.

Anika resolved to keep her mouth shut about the whole thing, not wanting to cause any problems for Remus whom she considered a friend.

That still left Anika with one question, however, why hadn't the werewolf attacked her? She knew that there was only one person who could answer that question, so with the drapes around her bed drawn tightly, she wrote a letter to Nicholas Flamel by wand light.

Nicholas,

I am writing to you with a question but first I would like you to accept that the contents of this letter should be shared with no one. I know Dumbledore is your friend, but I don't want to get my friends in trouble and sharing what I am about to ask you and the circumstances surrounding it surely would result in them getting in trouble.

Last night I found myself in the grounds of Hogwarts confronted by a werewolf. I assure you I am fine, but I would like to ask you why I am fine. The werewolf did not attack me, it simply sniffled me intently before it was knocked away by a dog, it then seemed to decide not to attack me and ran away into the forest.

Do you know anything about why this may be?

With love,

Anika

She resolved to post the letter the next day and fell into a restless sleep, full of dreams of werewolves and anamagi.

*

Anika avoided all four of the boys the next day, she could feel their eyes on her as they wondered what she was thinking of the night's events. None of them approached her, so she decided she would not approach them either, perhaps if she feigned ignorance over the identities of the animals then the event could pass by without anyone else finding out Remus' secret.

However, she couldn't avoid them all for the whole day as she still had two nights worth of detention to serve alongside Sirius.

"Hello Flamel," Sirius smiled at her when she entered the trophy room that night to serve her detention. Anika handed her wand over to Filtch who locked it away and handed her the rag she had been given to clean the trophies. Filtch left the two alone, never one to enjoy spending time with students.

"Black," Anika nodded at Sirius and set about polishing a gobstones trophy.

"We're back to not talking then?" Sirius asked, clearly confused about why the girl had not yet mentioned what she had seen in the grounds the previous night. He had been eavesdropping on her conversations with her friends all day and she hadn't mentioned the event once.

"I'm polishing a trophy, you're talking," Anika sighed. Sirius made his way over to her and picked up a second gobstones trophy beside the one that Anika had been cleaning, he began to clean it silently.

Sirius started sentences several times but never knew what to say. He wanted to check if she was okay, to make sure that the night's events hadn't caused her too much fear, but he didn't know how to say it without revealing that he had been the big black dog who had come to her rescue.

When Anika reached for the next trophy, Sirius instinctively reached out and took her hand in his. Anika stared at their interlocked hands, but did nothing to withdraw her hand from his, letting his thumb lightly caress the back of her hand in a comforting manner.

Then Sirius took a chance, he leaned forwards and kissed her lips. Lightly at first, but when she didn't push him away and shout at him he gained more confidence and the kiss deepened.

It would be an understatement to say that Anika was shocked. She was completely taken by surprise by the kiss. She could feel all of the words that were left unsaid through this kiss. Sirius was asking her if she was okay, wanting to know that she was not too scared of what had happened the night before. Anika answered him silently, letting the kiss deepen, assuring him that she was okay.

Somehow the kiss didn't feel as shocking the longer it went on, rather it felt inevitable. Like the two of them were always supposed to end up in the trophy room sharing this moment with each other, Anika had never felt more human than she felt when she kissed Sirius Black.

Animal instincts took over as Sirius dropped the trophy he was holding to the floor with a loud clang which neither of them reacted to. Sirius' hands wandered up her back as one of Anika's hands rested on his chest and the other on the back of his neck. Anika felt her back press against the shelves and the kiss continued.

It felt like hours had passed, but really it had been minutes before the pair broke apart both panting for breath.

Kissing Sirius Black was nothing like kissing Bertram, Anika thought, with Bertram there had never been this much passion and Bertram had never made her stomach fill with butterflies the way it did now. Whilst Anika was not a virgin, Sirius' kiss had shown her how much she still had to discover.

Sirius was over the moon. Kissing Anika was like staring directly into the sun and he felt dizzy with happiness over finally having made the move he had wanted to make for years.

"You can slap me if you like," Sirius said once they had both caught their breath. They remained locked together, Sirius' hands on Anika's waist, her hands resting against his chest.

"I don't want to slap you," Anika stated, "But I also will not be another one of Sirius Black's conquests."

She pushed him away, leaning down to pick up the trophy and the rags that they had dropped. She handed one of the rags to Sirius and begun polishing the trophy that had been on the floor, which now had a large dent in the top of it.

Anika knew Sirius' reputation, and no matter how right the kiss had felt, she didn't think it would have felt the same for Sirius who had had more than his fair share of stolen kisses at Hogwarts with a large array of girls, including one of Anika's best friends, Marlene McKinnon.

"You're not," Sirius insisted after a few dumbstruck moments of silence, "conquest, is that what you think of me?"

"What else am I supposed to think?"

Sirius was silent. He wracked his brain for how he could prove to her that she meant more than the other girls to him. He had only been with those other girls because his feelings for Anika terrified him, but after watching her almost get mauled by his best friend, Sirius' feelings of fear had shifted to an all-consuming need to protect her.

"Go to Hogsmeade with me," Sirius blurted out.

"What?"

"I'll prove to you that you're more than just a 'conquest'," Sirius said, saying the word with disdain.

"Go to Hogsmeade? With you?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

And just like that, Sirius vowed to himself that he would never be with anyone other than Anika Flamel.