evening wrapped itself tightly, like a veil, covering the empty street in a suffocating quiet. There was only the occasional flash of faint streetlights cutting through the surrounding gloom. Your battered jacket hugged your shape, hiding the wand that was jammed against your side. A hastily filled backpack bumped against your back with each rushed stride. Every breath was tight in your chest, and every shadow fell strangely across the ground, as if it was waiting to leap into motion.

You moved as quickly as you could, your heart pounding, your eyes scouring the way before you for the dim purple light of the Knight Bus. Adrenaline pumped through your system, making your fingers shake. Every noise, every snap of twig, every sigh of the wind,made your head whip around, expecting threat. It was not bravery that made you go on, but a deep, desperate need to escape.

Then

*There was a dry, sharp crack through the stillness as if a spell was breaking stone. You stopped short.

There was something.

Out of the darkness materialized a gigantic black dog, monstrous and gaunt. Its ribs pushed out under filthy fur clotted in tufts. Its eyes, too bright, too intelligent, burned with an unnatural, unearthly glare. The animal moved forward, slow and deliberate, head lowered, back hunched like a hunter stalking its victim.

You took a step back.

It growled, a low, guttural noise, and then barked.

Not simply a bark.

A low, soul, shaking burst of sound that rumbled through your bones and reverberated off the vacant street. Your heart dropped into your stomach. Terror paralyzed you where you stood, incapable of running, incapable of thinking. The dog stopped a few feet away, panting, regarding you with unnerving intelligence, as if considering its choices.

Then something changed.

Its body convulsed violently, shuddering and twisting in unnatural spasms. The fur appeared to melt away, drawn back into the skin. Bones cracked and elongated with a disconcerting sound. Massive paws curled into elongated, bony fingers. The spine stretched and contorted grotesquely. The snout receded, reshaping into something unsettlingly human.

And then, where moments before had stood a beast, there now crouched a man.

He was skinny, with sharp, hunched shoulders, and his limbs shook with the transition. His face was covered by long, wavy hair that fell. His clothing hung on him in torn, rag-like fashion. He looked as if he had not slept or eaten in days. But it was his eyes that rooted you to the spot.

Piercing. Shadowed. Ancient.

He glared at you with a stare so intense it was like a hand on your throat. That glance—halfway between anger and acknowledgment, communicated one thing to you with utter clarity:

There could be no going back.

Something inside you whispered his name before your mind caught up.

Sirius Black.

The notorious prisoner of Azkaban, the madman on the loose whom the wizarding world feared. And yet, there was a glint in his eyes, something… human. Something broken and longing. He was breathing hard, as though he had been running for miles, or maybe, running from himself.

You could've run as well. You ought've. But your feet did not move.

**Perhaps it was curiosity. Perhaps it was fate. Or perhaps it was the subtle knowledge that the man before you wasn't going to hurt Not tonight.

The wind rustled your jacket. Your fingers, no longer trembling, closed around your wand. His gaze darted to it. Then, slowly, intentionally, he held up both hands, displaying that they were empty.

wasn’t a trap

It was an encounter.

And in some way, you realized that this instant, this encounter on a still, empty street beneath a moonless sky, was not chance. Something had brought him here. Something had drawn you both into the same orbit.

The question was: what would you do now?

Regardless of the decision you made, the world you knew had already changed. There would be no returning to what was before. Just forward, into the unknown, together.