- Text Size +
Midnight Visitors


Dear James,
Glad to hear you got to talk to Dumbledore about Snuffles and there’s a way to fix it. I’m afraid mother’s heard about the row the Resistance had with the Death Eaters on your property, though, and she refuses to let me leave home again ‘til I’m on the Express. Frankly my father had to talk her into letting me and my sister go even to Hogwarts next term. There was talk of pulling us from school. You lot can come here if you like but you must not let her see Snuffles if you do as she’s terrible afraid of The Grim and might not take kindly to Snuffles. I’ve got to go, it’s dinner. See you when you come or else on the Express. If nothing else, we could always do the charm there! Tell Snuffles hello.
Peter


James scowled and Sirius let out a low whine and lay on the carpet sadly as Bubo fluttered her wings, recovering from the trip from the Pettigrew’s house. She clicked her beak impatiently for James to fill her feed cup and ruffled while she waited. James tossed the letter from Peter down on the desk and got up, dumping a load of seeds into Bubo’s cage. “Bloody cowardly git!” James grumbled, “He can’t think it’s exactly easy for us to walk out of here right now, with my mum freaking out over the Death Eaters, can he? Easier for him to sneak off than it is for us.” James slammed the box of seed back down and Bubo squaked angrily.

Sirius sighed and put his head down between his paws and closed his eyes.

“I know you’re sick of being a dog, and I’m sick of you being a dog - we can’t go two whole months ‘til we’re on the Express,” James said. “Look, I know you aren’t going to like it but I think the only answer for us now is to ask Remus for help.”

Sirius looked up quickly, his head rising up from the carpet and swinging no widely.

“Snuffles, it’s the only way, unless you want to tell the grown-ups what we’ve done and --” James lowered his voice, “I don’t think that’s a very smart idea. I don’t wanna go to Azkaban for this!”

Sirius stood up and started pacing.

James sighed, “It’s the only option we’ve got. His house is a heck’uva lot closer than Peter’s, we could sneak out without mum even knowing we’re gone ‘til we’re back.”

Sirius wanted to say no - he didn’t want Remus knowing what was going on yet - but then again James was right. He couldn’t go another two months and they couldn’t tell any of the grown-ups what they’d done - correction, were doing. Sirius had no intentions to cease his attempts at becoming an animagus over a little hold up like this. Especially now that they knew the reversal. He fully intended to keep working at it until he’d perfected the art, which he’d wanted to do before telling Remus, but now -- He sat down and looked up at James.

James held out his palm, “What do you say? Do we go to see Remus?”

Sirius raised his paw and dropped it into James’s outstretched hand.




Remus was asleep, curled up beneath the blankets on his bed, when there came a persistent clicking on his bedroom window. He groaned, wanting the clicking to stop, but to no avail. He rolled over in his bed to see what the noise was and was surprised to see Bubo, tapping at the glass with her beak. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and went over to wrench open the window frame. “Bubo?” he yawned, “What’re you doing here at this -- this hour?” But Bubo didn’t hop inside like she usually did when he opened the bedroom window… there was no note tied to her leg… instead, she turned about and flew down to the edge of the trees, to the spot that Remus always peered in his paranoia. He squinted across the pale blue of the grass.

Quickly, he turned and got his bathrobe, tugging it around himself and tying it off at the waist, stepping into slippers as he hurried down the stairs. His slippers squeaked on the clean kitchen floor. He opened the backdoor and ran through the yard, glancing back at the house to confirm all the windows were still dark and he hadn’t woken his father.

“What are you doing here?” Remus said, when he reached the edge of the trees where James stood, Bubo perched on his shoulder. “And at this hour? After the fight your dad’s had with the Death Eaters at your house?”

James’s voice was low, “Rey, I have a problem and I need your help.”

“What is it?” Remus asked.

James said, “Well, you know the -er- project that we’ve been working on? The one we couldn’t tell you about?”

“Bloody hell, what’s Sirius done now?” Remus asked.

James chuckled, “Well… it’s not really Sirius’s fault what’s happened…” He took a deep breath and turned around, “Sirius… come out.”

Remus looked where James was looking and from the thick of the woods there emerged a dark shape… His eyes widened as the moonlight fell on the shaggy dog and he looked at James, then back to the dog. “Don’t tell me that’s --”

“Sirius? Yeah,” James nodded.

“You’re serious?” he asked.

“Yeah, he’s Sirius,” James replied, misunderstanding.

Remus put his two hands up on his head, groaning, “How did this happen? What were you ruddy idiots trying to do?” He stared at Sirius in disbelief. “Bloody hell.”

James explained quickly, “Well, we were trying to figure out a way to keep you company in the Shrieking Shack and --”

“Don’t tell me you were trying to transfigure yourselves into werewolves!” Remus said, panicked.

“No, no, no!” James said, “No, nothing like that. Well, I suppose something sort of like that. We were actually trying to become animaguses.”

Remus muttered, “You didn’t.”

“We did. We made the potion and learned how to cast silent spells and everything and we took the potion on the full moon and said the spells and -- oh Rey, it was brilliant, I grew these big horns out of my head!” James held his arms up to simulate the horns. Remus opened his eyes - wide - mouth hanging agape. “But that’s all. Just the horns. Nothing else changed no matter what we did and neither Peter nor Sirius could seem to get anything to happen at all. And Sirius got real frustrated and obsessed - you know how he gets - and he stayed up all night trying to figure it out and next morning…” James waved his hands at the dog. “And then he couldn’t turn back.”

Remus shook his head. “Well it’s very advanced magic, isn’t it?” he said, “It’s no wonder you lot ran into trouble with it! McGonagall herself said she trained for years in becoming an animagi! How long were you lot at it? A couple months?”

“Give or take,” James murmured.

“Merlin’s beard, I knew it was some hairbrained idea of Sirius’s you lot were up to!” he said, rubbing his forehead, “It was his idea, wasn’t it?”

James looked at the dog, then back to Remus, “...kind of, yeah. But Rey - it’s alright, the fix is really easy. It’s just that it takes two of us to cast the spell and Peter’s not allowed out of his house and his mum doesn’t like black dogs so we can’t go there and so -- well, even though Sirius didn’t want you to know about the us-becoming-animaguses bit yet, we had to tell you so as to set this right and make him human again.”

Remus looked at the dog pointedly, “We should leave him like that ‘til he learns his lesson in terrible ideas.”

“Trust me, he’s learned his lesson already,” James said. “Haven’t you Snuffles?”

Sirius whimpered and rubbed a paw over his face.

“Snuffles?” Remus asked.

James nodded, “Yeah. That’s what my dad’s been calling him for the past two weeks.” James reached down and took the collar from Sirius’s shaggy neck and held it up, the shiny dog bone with the word Snuffles engraved upon it up so Remus could see it clearly.

Remus laughed. “What a brilliant new nickname for you.”

“We need to set this right, Rey!” James said, “I miss Sirius.”

Remus nodded, “Alright, how do we do it?”

James showed Remus the Z-shape that Dumbledore had shown him for waving the wand to cast the spell and they practiced for a couple minutes as Sirius laid on the grass, watching, nervous and excited at the same time. The sky was turning pink around the edges when they finally decided they were ready to take action and they turned to Sirius. “Are you ready, mate?” James asked.

Sirius nodded his great shaggy head.

James glanced at Remus. “Alright, then, on the count of three -- one, two, three --”

Homorphus!” they said together, both waving their wands at exactly the same time. White light jet out of the two wands, meeting in the middle and encapsulating Sirius. He shuddered and there was a terrible cracking and stretching sound and the dog’s back seemed to turn nearly backwards and his legs extended and paws split apart and his fur sucked back into his body with a funny slurping sound and his elongated face melted backwards, flattening ‘til there was no longer a shaggy dog wrapped in the light of their wands, but the boy, Sirius Black. He toppled to the ground in a great heap.

James lowered his wand instantly, as did Remus, and they both hurried forward to see if Sirius was alright. He appeared passed out and James shook his shoulder, waking him up. “Sirius… Sirius, are you alright? Blimey that didn’t look pretty at all!” James exclaimed.

Sirius blinked up at them both, a weak, sleepy sort of expression on his face. “What’re you bloody on about,” he murmured, “I’m sure I looked fabulous. I always do.”

“Not always,” laughed James.

“Better than you, you ugly git,” Sirius said, smiling up at his mate.

Remus shook his head, “You’re a bloody idiot, Black. You nearly spend the rest of your life as a dog and the first thing you say when you’re fixed is an insult to your best mate?”

Sirius’s smile widened. “Would you rather I pay you one instead?”

Remus rolled his eyes, but he was just glad Sirius was okay. “I knew I should’ve been worried about you lot with all your secrets. I can’t believe you kept this from me all this time.” Shaking his head, and rolling his eyes, he said, “Come in for breakfast. My dad will be happy to meet you lot when he gets up, I’ve told him a lot about you… and if that was anything like what I do through every month, then I’m sure you’re famished,” he added, looking to Sirius.

“I’ve never been so hungry in all my life,” Sirius agreed.

“Well, c’mon then,” Remus said, “I’ll make you up something.”

They pulled Sirius to his feet and he weakly braced himself on their shoulders and the three of them walked across the yard. “Animagi,” muttered Remus, “I still can’t believe you three… You’re all positively barking for trying this!”

“Well, I was at anyrate,” Sirius said, smirking.