Sirius mournfully wandered around the snowed in streets of Hogsmeade. He could see the lights twinkling in the pubs at the end of the street, and as he shuddered, his lean form begged him for shelter and warmth that came with the bar. But not only were Sirius Blacks prohibited in the Hog’s Head, dogs were strictly banned too. Suddenly, his nose smelt a familiar smell, and he rounded a familiar bend. Trotting faster through the freezing snow that bit at his paws, he tried to ignore the frost that was forming on the pads on the bottom of his feet. As he neared the quiet little house, he ducked his head in remembrance and gratitude for the woman that lived there…
*
‘Yeh’ve got another mutt, have yeh Mopsy?’
‘Hello, Rubeus!’ trilled Mopsy, flicking a grey curl out of her eye and behind her ear with one, short, efficient sweep. She smiled, and her cheeks dimpled in the corners. All around her swarmed dogs of every shape and size. One was gnawing on her house slippers, another sniffing suspiciously at the hem of her slightly dirty skirt.
Hagrid pointed to a rather fine looking dog, regardless of the mud caked across its back and the stray whiskers sprouting from its muzzle. ‘New dog, eh? Mebe Fang’ll be wanting someone to have around in the hut. Always thought of getting another dog,’ Hagrid said wistfully.
‘He’s a stray, Rubeus. He’s poorly, starved and malnourished, but once he’s well I’ll send him on over. Just mind that that nasty piece of work Argus Filch doesn’t find him. I swear, that scoundrel and his cat! She’s a piece of work, herself – and she’s a cat! A mangy, dirty, filthy beastly cat,’ she swore.
Hagrid guffawed. ‘I’ll admit she is a pain in the rear. Where’d you find the new one, anyway?’
Mopsy absentmindedly guided the dogs forwards with her hands, towards her little green house on the corner. ‘Oh, I was out walking the puppies one night and came across him staring up at the school. He ran up to me, happy as Larry and ran straight past me into my front yard! I couldn’t help but keep the poor thing, dirty and starving! His poor ribs were sticking out, looked like he hadn’t had a meal for a month or two.’ She laughed affectionately, scratching the black dog under its jaw.
The dog barked happily and its tongue flopped out, waving in the breeze. It casually lopped around, barking insanely until Mopsy gathered him up in her arms, laughing softly. She whistled, calling the other six or seven dogs with her, and Hagrid had to spin on his right leg to avoid one little Scotty dog that was sniffing Hagrid’s left boot, ready to lift his leg.
‘Come on you,’ she crooned, clicking her fingers until the Scotty dog came.
‘I’ll see you another time, Rubeus. And don’t let that cat get the better of Fang!’ She waved to Hagrid, and he chortled a reply.
‘Only if yeh stop taking in strays! They’ll be taking over yeh house soon!’ He walked away, towards the Hog’s Head happily, whistling a tune.
Dark was falling as they neared the end of the lane and turned into the lush, happy little lane. Turning the corner she opened the sweet garden gate and pattered inside, taking care not to step on any of the dogs’ tails, and making sure they weren’t stepping in any of her flower beds. Gathering them all around on the little patch of snowed on, white grass out the front donated to their doings, she frowned. The hedges were covered in white, so it was quite possible that her little whiter dogs could be hiding, but the black dog? Surely he’d be easily distinguishable.
‘Stanley? Stanley?’ she whistled to the newcomer, the black dog. Suddenly, she heard a yelping. Grabbing her wand from her pocket, she ran out into the street, landing heavily on the sidewalk as she jumped over the black dog’s lifeless form.
‘Be gone! Leave here!’ Mopsy brandished her wand at the eerily floating creature. A death rattle sounded in its throat, and Mopsy drove the Dementor back with a fierce jabbing of her wand.
‘Expecto Patronum!’ she pointed her wand at the Dementor and called upon her favourite, dearest memory with all her strength.
Mopsy is just a young girl, flighty and free. Suddenly, a round of applause goes up, and attention is focused on her in the ring.
‘Begin,’ says Mospy, pointing. She gestures towards the dog run, and guides her young Labrador towards the first jump. Amazingly, she completes the whole course perfectly.
Posey barks and stands erectly, wonderfully tall as they present her with her blue ribbon. Mospy grins lopsidedly and bends down to let her prize dog lick her face…
A huge, thundering dog flew out of the wand tip, rearing up and attacking the Dementor with its claws. Bouncing around on its hind legs, like Mopsy had taught her to, Posey barked and threatened the Dementor with her silvery paws.
The Dementor flew back into its guard position at the gate to Hogwarts, and Mopsy grunted, clicking her fingers so that her Patronus would return to her feet obediently.
‘Good girl, Posey! Fighting off the nasty, big, mean Dementor like that! Good girl!’ she patted Posey on the head gratefully, and the dog grinned a doggie grin and faded into silver mist.
‘Stanley! Stanley! Where have you got to, silly doggie?’ Mopsy called across the street. She heard a distant growling and barking coming from her living room and she hurriedly flew across the street in her carpet slippers.
Inside was a nightmare. Dogs were snarling, ripping up the lounge and its cushions with their teeth, snapping and barking at each other – or so it seemed. As Mopsy got closer, she was on the verge of tears. All her precious dogs – Exi, Aska, Anna, Scottie – they were all attacking her newest friend Stanley, and she couldn’t bear it!
‘Stanley!’ she whimpered, stroking his back and waving the other dogs away angrily. They seemed to sense that they had done something terrible and they walked away whining, their tails between their legs and let Mopsy fuss over Stanley, or Sirius, with loving hands and an experienced eye.
‘Nothing I can’t fix, my pet. All I can suggest for now is to let me clean your wounds with what I have and go and get some disinfectant. I ran out last time I let Scottie run wild in my rose bush.’ She patted his flank encouragingly, and Sirius smiled a doggie smile through his obvious pain.
Sirius wandered into the bathroom and curled up into a ball as he heard Mospy fussing around, gathering things to take with her to go buy the required medicines for Sirius. He yawned, and fell into an exhaustion-induced slumber.
He woke up some time later to hear whining of the other dogs and their nails scratching against the bathroom door. They could smell a fake. He straightened up and transformed, grateful to be out of his squashed, Animagus form.
Sirius winced as he peeled off his torn Azkaban robes. Bloody scrapes stretched down his wasted back, over protruding bones and gaunt ribs. Shimmying out of his blood-soaked robes was painful, but he was determined to have a bath and clean up before Mopsy got home and started calling him ‘Stanley’ again.
He was just easing himself into the quaint little tub when he heard the front door bang shut. Too weak to transform into his Animagus form again, he leapt into the half-full bath and turned off the taps with an abrupt yank of his hands on the faucets. He hastily pulled the shower curtain around him, but it was too late. He heard Mopsy’s footsteps coming closer and closer to the bathroom as he sunk deeper into the bath.
‘NO, no! Down Exi! Down girl! Run along and play with Aska! Let me go to the bathroom!’
Sirius’ eyes widened. He peeked past the shower curtain just as the dreaded woman entered. Damning himself and his torn and bloody clothes, he lay even lower in the bath, but held his head above the water so he didn’t gurgle.
The sound of a toilet lid lift and the creak of the seat, as she sat her ample behind down on the toilet, was almost too much for Sirius to visualise. He scrunched his eyes shut and imagined that he was anywhere, anywhere else but a tiny crowded bathroom in which he was hiding in a bathtub and a middle aged witch was doing her business on a toilet five feet away.
He heard the toilet paper spin on the holder and breathed a sigh of relief as the seat creaked and she got up off, flushing the toilet and turning on the tap. Sirius took a few panting breaths as the water stung his fresh wounds, but misjudged the time of the water hitting the basin and took one breath too many.
‘I didn’t forget to pull back that shower curtain, did I now?’ said Mopsy curiously. Sirius panicked and covered himself the best he could, but when Mopsy yanked back the shower curtain with a broad grin on her face, it quickly disappeared and turned into a look of horror.
‘Sirius Black! Sirius Black naked in my bathtub! Oh, woe! Oh, merciless demi-gods! Oh, fiends!’ she screamed, running from the bathroom and Sirius winced as he heard her trip over one of her precious dogs in the cluttered living room.
He pulled himself out of the bath and dressed in his ragged clothes as quickly as he could… if only he could get to her and explain before…
‘Sirius Black! Sirius Black in my bathroom!’ she shrieked to the neighbours.
‘Quieten down, Mospy you old fool! I’ve had enough of those barking dogs, I don’t need an old coot screaming and ranting about an escaped murderer in her lavatory late at night!’ The sound of a slamming door and a furious Mopsy could distinctly be heard from the bathroom. Smirking, Sirius turned back into the large, loping black dog and padded out into the living room. The other dogs observed him warily, smart enough not to engage in another fight.
‘Oh, Stanley you poor thing! Where did you come from?’ Mospy ran up to Sirius and scratched him between the ears on the crown of his head, irritated, he turned away and suddenly, to Mopsy’s horror turned back into Sirius.
‘You… you… ’ Mopsy was speechless, her hands shooting to her mouth in fright. She backed away.
‘No,’ croaked Sirius, stepping nearer hastily. ‘No.’
‘No, what?’ trembled Mopsy. ‘You’re a murderer. You’re going to murder me, and my precious dogs! I knew there was a reason they attacked you!’ She pointed her finger at him, and Sirius almost smiled at the clearly noticeable wobble.
‘I’m not a murderer. And I’m not going to hurt you, or your dogs.’
‘You’re not?’ she fell back onto her tea-cosied lounge but didn’t back away further.
‘No. I just needed a place to hide from the Dementors until I could get into Hogwarts.’
‘You wanted to get into Hogwarts! You wanted to kill the Potter boy! Ooh, you fiend!’ she threw a crotched pillow at him and Sirius ducked, amazed. The dogs growled and closed in around him, digging their claws into the carpet.
‘No,’ he said adamantly. ‘I don’t want to kill Potter. I want to tell him I didn’t kill his parents. Or Peter Pettigrew.’ Sirius was amazed at himself. Why was he telling this old coot all this?
Mopsy’s eyes softened. ‘You were such a good dog, Stanley. Such a good dog. I suppose I can forgive you?’
Sirius shook his head. She was batty. No wonder her neighbours didn’t like her. ‘No… I just wanted to stay long enough to thank you for warding off the Dementors. You saved my life.’
‘You’re welcome any time dear, but first let me clean those scrapes of yours…’
*
Sirius bowed his head as he strolled past Mospy’s house. The lights were off, and the snow was lightly coating the front yard, but if he looked close enough, he could see the bowl of water and dog food that she left out for him every night. Mopsy still took good care of him, and he would eternally be grateful to the dog-crazed woman that saved his life.