Chapter Text
It started with the doorbell ringing at Sirius's clinic, in the last week of September. On the doorstep stood a man in his late twenties, cradling a cat basket to his chest. The cat looked at Sirius with fearful eyes and hissed.
Sirius looked at the man. It was difficult to tell whether he was a Muggle or a wizard from the way he was dressed: trainers, blue jeans and a fluffy cardigan the colour of the forest with a few amber strands woven throughout, worn open over a warm brown T-shirt.
However, the plaque on Sirius's clinic door was only visible to wizards. To them, it read: Sirius Black, Magic Beast Healer. For Muggles, it read: S. Black – NO JUNK MAIL.
Sirius was a little annoyed to have been distracted from his boring but necessary paperwork duty for nothing. However, he forced a professional smile (the one that looked fake, but assured) and said, "Good morning, Sir. I'm afraid this must be a mistake. We don't treat animals like this here."
"Hi, hello!" said the young man in the forest cardigan. "Well… In fact, this one here got into an unfortunate magical interference, I'm afraid. And I thought I could solve it by myself, but I've been trying all the counter-jinx I could think of, without results. And Fluffy's getting very distressed by now, as you can see…" As if on cue, the ginger cat hissed again angrily.
Sirius sighed. He guessed he could take a few minutes to help this man out, after all. He stepped away from the door passage, signalling the man to enter. "Please, come in, let's have a look at this jinxed cat."
He led the way through the entrance and welcome desk, passed the open door to his office where the table was crammed with his discarded paperwork, and opened the door to the examination room. The man put the basket on the examination table.
Sirius opened the basket with a flick of his wand. The cat remained inside. "Come on, Mr Fluffy, let me see you," he said, in the gentle tone he assumed with animals, holding his hand out in front of the basket for the cat to sniff.
Cautiously, Fluffy made his way into plain sight. Only the tail was still inside the basket now. The cat seemed perfectly normal, and Sirius grumbled in his head about the forest cardigan man who was wasting his time with a perfectly fine cat.
The man stepped forward and grabbed his cat, cuddling him in his arms. "See, the problem is that our little neighbour from the village is just 2, and a little bit of a pest with Fluffy, if I may say."
He chuckled, and Sirius started to see what the issue was. The cat was now in the man's hold, three feet away from the basket, but its beautiful - and indeed fluffy - tail was still partly inside the basket. The man took three steps back, and the end of the tail was still not in sight.
Sirius laughed good-heartedly. "Oh, Fluffy, what did this little bugger do to you?" He manipulated the tail, the cat meowing angrily again, until he could see the end. It was a good 10 feet long.
The man sighed. "I saw the kid pulling on his tail, and I told him to stop. But I think my voice was a bit too urgent. The boy got scared, and he spilt some accidental magic as a defence mechanism, still holding Fluffy's tail. And that's what we got." He shrugged.
Sirius smiled. The story was quite funny after all, and the man seemed very sweet albeit a bit awkward. "I see exactly what you mean. My Harry is 2, too, and his chubby little hands are a real menace!"
Sirius started with the diagnostic spells for curses, and soon enough he had identified the source of the problem and was performing an easy counter-jinx to sort the cat out.
As soon as his tail had regained its normal size, Fluffy started purring and rubbing his head against the man's chin. He even licked at Sirius's fingers when he presented them to him. "Good boy!" Sirius said, stroking his head, "Aren't you beautiful!"
The cat's owner seemed a bit flustered when Sirius looked up at him. The man cleared his voice, and said, "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I usually go to see Dr. Gimlas. But, as I'm sure you know very well, he's closed his practice since he's been appointed Professor of the Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts."
"You didn't bother me at all. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression." He smiled. "To be frank, I first thought you were a Muggle with a very standard cat, that's all. I'm very happy I could help out the handsome Mr Fluffy here."
There was a reddish tint to the man's ears, and he stuttered a bit as he asked, "Thank you very much. So, um… How much do I owe you?"
Sirius looked up at the man and noticed the uncertainty in his features. Normally, for his very wealthy usual clientele, this kind of "debugging" would have been at least fifteen galleons. However, something in the way the man held himself let it to guess he was likely less financially comfortable. And, after all, Sirius was doing well enough to afford a bit of generosity.
That's why he told him, "It will be five galleons."
The way the man's eyes widened would have almost been comic, if Sirius hadn't felt instantly bad for having guessed well, but not adjusted enough, apparently. Nevertheless, the man was quick to return to a more neutral look, and he answered, "Of course." He fished into his pocket to pull out five galleons out of his wallet. He held them to Sirius. "Thank you so much for your help."
Sirius took the galleons and was about to move back and lead the way to the exit, when the man held out his hand to him again and said, "I'm Remus, by the way. Remus Lupin. Nice to meet you, Healer Black."
Sirius shook the man's - Remus's - hand, warm and firm in his. "Nice to meet you, Mr Lupin. You and Mr Fluffy take good care and have a wonderful afternoon."
The man and Fluffy left, and Sirius returned to his paperwork, before his 16 o'clock appointment would come. As he was trying to sort out the invoices, and later as he was performing the standard owls' yearly anti-jinx vaccines for his next clients, he was puzzled to find his thoughts circling back to amber eyes, warm hands, and a lanky man in a forest cardigan.