[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Dog, Stag, Rat, Remus


The fire cracked and sparks rose up from within it, spinning into the sky, orange and bright. Remus was reminded instantly of fireflies as he watched them go. Sirius’s silhouette against the flame as he stoked it with a stick that he chucked into the heat made Remus smile and when he came to sit back down, Sirius went ‘round to sit on the log directly behind where Remus was leaning, putting his legs ‘round either side of Rey’s shoulders and leaning down so his chin was on Remus’s head, watching the flame dance before them.

James had fallen asleep mumbling about apple popovers. Sirius had transformed and run off to find something for them to skewer and returned shortly with a rabbit. At first Peter had turned his nose up to the idea, but once Remus and Sirius had got the rabbit roasting in chunks on sticks in the fire, Peter had come around to the idea. They woke James when the food was ready and they’d all enjoyed a sort of feast of sorts - or what seemed like one to them, in the freedom of the woods, the smell of the trees and the lingering pot surrounding them, the stars peeking out in the sky. The best part was the view -- the clearing Sirius and James had stopped in was only a few trees away from the edge of the Black Lake, the opposite side from Hogwarts castle, and from where they sat about on logs, through a couple sparse trees, they could see the castle, looming high up, dark black against a dark blue night sky, gold windows here and there flicking on and off as the inhabitants moved about.

Sirius closed his eyes, relishing the smell of Remus - dusty books, old sweatshirts, and chocolate. He draped his arms about him, clasping his hands at Remus’s chest, and Remus put his hands up to hold Sirius’s wrists.

“I wish moments like this lasted forever,” Sirius murmured, and he turned his head so it was his cheek resting on Rey instead of his chin.

“In a way, I reckon they do,” Remus answered.

Sirius drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Remus looked around at James and Peter, confirming they were each asleep, and the rise and fall of their chest told him that they truly were, and he said, “Can you believe we’re nearly halfway through it already? Hogwarts, I mean.” He was staring at the castle.

“It feels like eternity,” Sirius answered.

Remus laughed, “It won’t once it’s over and we’re all grown up and woking. It’ll seem like it went by in a flash then. I wish I could make these moments last, too, is my point.”

“You’re not cross with me for the weed, are you, by the way?” Sirius murmured.

Remus sighed, “I wish you hadn’t done, but I’m not cross, no. You and James get into a good lot of mischief, I reckon the lesson I should be learning is that you lot ought not be left alone unsupervised…” he laughed.

Sirius chuckled.

“But I know you lot have stuff you’re going through, too,” he added.

Sirius said, “Yeah.”

Remus stroked Sirius’s arms. “You’re okay, though, right?”

Sirius nodded against Remus’s head. He paused. “Do you reckon we ought tell the other two about what happened? With Eileen Prince?”

“No,” Remus said. “Let it be.”

Sirius nodded again. That had been the answer he was hoping for. He didn’t want James to look at him differently - and Peter… well, Peter would probably be afraid of Sirius if he knew he was a murderer… For yes, that was still how Sirius was thinking of himself, whatever Remus said about it. The weight of the kill rested on his shoulders, on his heart, and there was no undoing that with telling himself that it wasn’t his fault. It was his wand that had done it - his voice that had spoken the words. If the Minister for Magic had been there, it would’ve been off to Azkaban with him… Sirius shuddered. A murderer, locked up in Azkaban. He couldn’t think of anything worse in all the world. That, he thought, would be a way to live up to the Black family name now, wouldn’t it? Prove all the people who whispered about him being a Black right. Prove Lyall Lupin right… No, keeping what had happened between him and Remus was the answer he’d wanted.

They sat in silence, staring off at the castle, the reflection of the moon on the lake, the sparks rising up. Remus could tell when he fell asleep, for the weight of him became heavier against his back and his hands started to slip. Rey rubbed Sirius’s arms, holding them in place carefully, and kissed his wrist. “Gonna be alright in the end, Padfoot,” he whispered, even though Sirius couldn’t hear.




In the castle, Lily and Severus were in the prefect’s toilet still. She’d jumped when, hours before, a perfecly ugly house elf had appeared in the room quite suddenly, his rough features jagged in the low light from the torches, clutching a tray full of sandwiches and pumpkin juice. The elf had put the tray on the floor and studied them, seeing Severus was sitting by Lily’s side, caught up in her arms, his face against her chest. “Master Regulus is asking Kreacher to keep the half-blood boy and the mudblood girl from starvation,” the elf murmured, looking her over in disapproval, “But oh Mistress Walburga would not approve, not at all.”

“Hullo,” Lily said to Kreacher, trying to ignore how creepy he looked in the dark.

“Thank you,” she said politely.

Kreacher stared at her, eyes hard with disapproval. He didn’t answer, instead, he looked over the tray, and then clicked his fingers and was gone.

“Severus,” Lily whispered, and she shifted so that he was forced to wake up a bit. “Here, look, an elf has just brought us sandwiches…”

“Not hungry,” Severus murmured.

“You need to eat,” she answered. “Just a few bites.” He groaned and sat up, but when she unscrewed a bottle of pumpkin juice, he took a sip obligingly, and accepted the sandwich she held out for him. “Here you are,” she said. “You need to keep your strength up, Sev. It won’t do you any good to get sick.”

He stared down at the sandwich, tearing it with his fingers. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he murmured, “The Dark Lord’s just going to kill me anyway.”

“Why would he kill you?” Lily asked. Then she amended, “Besides the fact that he’s Voldemort and it’s what he does anyway?”

Severus shivered, “Don’t say his name, Lil.”

She furrowed his brow, “What?”

“His name,” Severus answered, “Don’t say his name… it’s disrespectful.”

“Disrespectful?” Lily laughed, “Good. I hope it is. I hope it pisses him right off when people say it.”

Severus replied, “You don’t, Lily. People who upset him, they don’t generally get a chance to do it more than once.”

“Because he’s a very evil man,” Lily answered. “But you can’t go giving evil people what they want. That doesn’t help any in changing them. It only appeases them until they figure out what else they want.” She watched as Severus continued tearing up the sandwich. He had the bites balanced on his knee., and hadn’t actually put any of them into his mouth yet. “You need to actually put it in your mouth, that’s how eating works, see,” she said.

Severus reluctantly did so. As he chewed he said, “I wish I knew what she’d done to upset him, at least. I wish I knew how it happened… I feel so lost not knowing, like until I can picture it in my head, she can’t really be gone. There isn’t even have a body to bury.”

Lily looked down at her hands in her lap, holding her sandwich. “I’m sorry, Sev,” she said quietly. “I wish I could make it better for you, or make it easier at least. I wish I knew the answer, I’d tell you and make it better.”

“I’ll find out,” he replied. “One way or another, I’ll find out. Someone has to know. Malfoy or somebody… I’ll search every mind until I find one who knows.”

Lily bit her lip. She didn’t like it when Severus talked about legilimency.

He looked at her, studying her in the flickering green torchlight as he chewed another bite of sandwich, only because he knew that’s what she wanted of him right now. When he’d finished the bits of sandwich he’d torn up, he looked over at her and boldly lay down, his back on the floor, putting his head into her lap so he was staring up at her. She froze, unsure if she was comfortable with this sort of an intimate position… But she hadn’t the heart to tell him to move, and so she simply let him lay there, but she kept her hands at her sides. Severus stared up at her for several long moments before reaching up and lifting the stag antler necklace charm up to look at it. “What is that?” he asked.

“Antlers. Like a deer.”

“Why in hell would you wear deer antlers?” he asked.

“They’re my favorite.”

Severus looked surprised, “Since when?”

“Years now.”

He stared at the antlers, then let the necklace drop back to her neck. “I didn’t know. It used to be butterflies. Remember the butterflies I used to conjure for you, back by our pond back home, before we came to Hogwarts?”

“They were lovely,” Lily answered.

He smiled. “I could try and conjure a deer up for you --.”

Lily laughed. “Not in a toilet! The poor thing.” But she would’ve liked if he could have found a way to conjure up her stag - the stag she’d met in the woods, the year before… with those big gentle eyes… and the way he’d hugged her... It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Severus about him - but she held back. The stag was hers, and she didn’t wish to share him with anyone. She felt if she told Severus it would be less real what happened - like she would be telling a dream and she didn’t want it to feel like a dream. It was real and she wanted it to stay as vividly real to her as she possibly could. She didn’t want Severus to stare at her like she was a freak.

”Evans. You’re not a freak,” the words echoed in her mind, spreading through her so warm and comforting that, at first, she didn’t even realize the words had come in James Potter’s voice.

“Thanks for coming down here to be with me,” Severus said thickly, suddenly breaking through Lily’s thoughts.

“Of course,” she replied, smiling down at Severus, even as she was puzzling over the way James’s voice had come to her...




When James woke up, it was to find something balancing on his face. He sat up and it rolled off into the bracken. He was freezing - the fire had died and the morning air was ice-cold. He looked and found what had been on his face - a bright red, shiny apple with a note spello-taped to the side.

Lucky the night had been unseasonably warm - compared to what it usually was like this time of year ‘round the grounds of Hogwarts, that is. He was just glad not to be buried beneath six feet of snow.

Messers Moony, Wormtail, and Padfoot request the presence of Messer Prongs at the lakeside upon his awakening.

As though to punctuate the message with an audible signature, there came the sound of Sirius barking happily, and a squeal from Peter. James pulled the spello-tape off the apple and chomped into it happily, smiling as he heard his friends laughing. He climbed to his feet and headed toward the sound of the barking dog just over the ridge, where the edge of the lake lay alongside a pebble-strewn beach. As James stumbled down the hill to the beach, Peter had just missed being swept off his feet by Sirius, who was dragging along what looked like half a tree - at least a very, very large branch. He ran with it, merrily wagging his tail as he went off down the beach.

“You’re daft!” yelled Remus, laughing, smiling after Sirius with the sort of expression on his face that can only be made when looking at somebody that means a great deal to you.

James came to a stop beside Remus. “Playing fetch?”

“That wasn’t the stick we threw,” Remus said. “He just came back with it and now he’s running amok.”

James laughed - down the beach, Sirius was running in circles with the tree dragging along behind, Peter running after him, laughing and trying to grab onto the branch to play, too.

Remus looked over at him, eyes narrowed knowingly, “Enjoying that apple?”

“Bloody delicious,” James said with a smirk playing across his face, though he was fighting, trying to keep his features straight. “However did you know I was craving one?”

Remus laughed and, in a move he’d clearly learned from Sirius, he slid his arm ‘round James’s shoulders, “You were Potter The Pothead last night.”

James crunched his apple.

As they watched, Peter transformed into his rat form, running up onto the branch and Sirius barked a laugh and ran even faster, dragging the branch - and Peter - along the beach. James grinned, taking the last chomp off his apple. He tossed the finished core into the woods to their side and he looked at Remus, “Shall we join them then?”

“It’s not the full moon, James,” said Remus. “I can’t transform.”

“Oh… yeah, right.” James nodded, “We’ll leave them to it.”

“No, go on, Prongs. Go play.” Remus smiled. “I’ll watch.”

James was quiet a moment. He really wanted to go… then a grin played on his mouth, “You could ride me.”

“Ride you?” Remus laughed.

“Yeah! I’ll turn and you climb up on my back and we’ll be a two-fer. We’ll get Peter up there with you - as a rat, of course, my poor back might bust if Peter was himself, blimey that’d be heavy.”

“You’re serious?” Remus said.

James glanced at the dog, then back at Remus, “Shall we say the joke? Make him proud?”

Remus shook his head, laughing. “I literally can’t say the word without thinking of him.”

James laughed, “C’mon, let’s go get that bloody stick.” And he threw himself forward, transforming into the great big stag with antlers that stretched into the sky… He took a few wobbling steps about, getting used to the feeling, and then he turned and lowered himself down far enough for Remus to swing his leg over his back.

Remus clutched into the fur. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

The stag honked lowly in his throat.

“I hope that’s a no, then…” Remus replied… and the buck pranced quickly down the beach, racing along, kicking up pebbles and sand as Remus shouted and laughed and the dog, seeing them coming, started barking and jumping, tail wagging wildly. “C’mon little Wormtail,” Remus said as James came to a stop next to the branch where Peter clutched on. The rat ran up the stag’s leg quickly, coming to a stop at James’s shoulder, snuggling himself into the soft fur between his shoulder blades. “High-ho, Prongsie!” shouted Remus, laughing, and off the stag went, chasing after the black furry dog as he streaked along, barking all the way along the edge of the Black Lake, headed back to the castle.