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Erumpetis


Being there were only two bicycles, Lily pedaled one and Sirius the other, while James balanced on the back axle, his palms on Sirius’s shoulders, hanging on tight as Sirius pedaled along, complaining. “You’re nearly as fat as Petunia’s walrus, you giant git!” Sirius shouted as they wobbled their way to the boardwalk from the park, “Bloody hell Potter, what did you eat for breakfast.”

Two bacon sandwiches and a bag of crisps!” James announced, laughing.

“Blimey,” Sirius said.

When they got to the boardwalk, they left the bikes against the shop’s wall again and went off to explore. James had exchanged some galleons for muggle money when Dora had brought him to get his swim shorts and he happily bought them a giant knickerbocker glory to split and they sat about at a picnic table and watched the crowds go by while they ate. Lily and Sirius told James about the incident with Snuffles, and Lily did a fair impression of Sirius the first day he’d tried riding the bicycle, which made James laugh and Sirius deny he’d ever been that terrible. “I was a natural at it, don’t believe her, she’s full of lies!”

“My money’s on Evans’s version, sorry mate,” James said and he high-fived Lily.

“Bugger the both of you,” Sirius said sourly, biting into the large cherry that had been a top their ice cream.

After they’d eaten, they bought ticket to ride the ferris wheel and the carousel and Sirius snapped pictures from the very top, where the wheel had come to a stop and Sirius shouted, rocking the seat and Lily yelled for him to stop it before he had a lapful of recycled knickerbocker glory to contend with. James looked at her ‘round Sirius, who had shoved himself in between them when they boarded and he smiled at her, enjoying the happy pink glow about her cheeks and the flickering of her green-green eyes.

They raced through the crowds of people once the ferris wheel had let them off and went to the carousel, where they selected horses and rode about in loops. Sirius enjoyed it so much he went ‘round a second time, shouting and waving each time he passed by and Lily and James stood outside the gate, watching alongside the other parents that had small children shrieking and waving from the painted ponies.

Lily looked up at James as they waited for Sirius, and she was reminded of the last time they’d really been alone together - standing on that balcony back at Hogwarts, the night with the cigarette. James was laughing at Sirius Black, but there was something in his eyes - a slight line of worry pinching the soft skin by his eyebrow… She looked over and saw Sirius go past and then looked up at James. “Are you having a good summer so far, Potter?” she asked.

James nodded, “Yeah, been alright so far. How about you, Evans?”

“It’s been interesting,” she replied, her eyes flitting to Sirius then back again.

“I told you to get a leash,” James reminded her.

“I ought to have listened,” she answered, laughing.

“I know Sirius Black,” he smirked, “I might not know much else, but I know him.” And he waved a Sirius went by again yelling PROOOOOONGS as he went.

Lily thought for a moment. “How are your folks?” she asked.

James’s lips twisted into a bit of a nervous pucker as he chewed the inside of his cheek nervously and he shifted his weight, glancing down at the boards beneath their feet, at his trainers… “Good,” he said. But she could tell he was lying.

“Is there something the matter?” she asked.

James looked at her and she could see the concern in his eyes, but he shook his head, “Nah. I’m alright, Evans.” He smiled, but it was a sad sort of smile, “Really. I’m just glad I’m here messing about with you lot…” He turned back to face the carousel as the spinning slowed and Sirius slid by one last time.

Lily hesitated, then put a palm on his arm. James felt like the muscles beneath her hand were on fire. “If you ever want to talk, James, just let me know.”

His eyes swiveled to meet hers.

Suddenly there was Sirius, bursting between them. “I can’t believe you nutters didn’t want another go at that! It’s fucking amazing. Think I’m a mite dizzy, though,” he added as he stumbled into James’s side.

“Should be quite used ot walking about dizzy by now,” James said, “With all the damned firewhiskey you consume.”

Sirius smirked.

They spent the rest of the afternoon meandering about the boardwalk. They got giant slices of pizza for lunch at Sirius’s insistence that James try pizza (“it’s ambrosia, I swear to the gods that this is what they serve on Olympus, Prongs,” he’d said). They played games in the arcade, most of which Lily had to explain to them how it worked but once they got the hang of it they were having a good time with it. Sirius and James had it out over a game where you used soft mallets to hit buttons in a particular sequence set by the game and it ended with them hitting each other with the mallets instead of the game board and a pitiful game over music sounded long before they’d finished hitting one another. They won a load of tickets, though - mostly because Lily was quite excellent at arcade games more than because either of the boys were any good at them - and they used them to buy plastic army men that came with funny little parachutes, which they threw over the rails of the boardwalk to watch their parachutes carry the plastic men over the beach sand, before coming to land several meters away in the dunes. Sirius took a polaroid of the falling army men while their bright colored parachutes were still deployed.




Far away, Newt Scamander sat in the demiguise’s nest, cradling Dougal, whose arms wrapped about Newt’s shoulders. Dougal faded in and out of sight. Newt stared blankly at the walls, his knees folded, eyes unfocused, his mouth a quivering solid line, tears burning but not quite coming. Far off in the recesses of the suitcase, he could hear Tina sobbing, could hear Bradley asking what the matter was, doing the job that he, Newt, ought to have been doing, but he couldn’t bare to move. He tugged his coat tighter ‘round himself and pressed his face into Dougal’s invisible furry shoulder.

He pulled away suddenly, moving Dougal off his lap, and he slid his way out of the little nest to the floor. The boards beneath him creaked as he walked through to the little shed and pulled himself up to the ladder. Bradley’s little face peeked ‘round the door. “Where are you going, Mr. Newt?” Bradley asked.

“Out,” Newt replied shortly, and he pushed open the case and climbed out, even as Bradley watched, his eyes begging the magizoologist not to leave.

Newt emerged in the Incurables’ ward, directly beside the bed where his son lay. He stared down at Lysander and felt that twisting knot in his belly that he usually got when he saw Lysander. They were too much alike, it was as though he were looking in a mirror. He was thankful that the appearance was where Lysander’s resemblance to his dad ended. There was no stuttering from that boy’s mouth, no stammering, no irrational fear of other people, no need to hide away in a briefcase full of creatures. Quite the opposite, Lysander Scamander seemed to hate the creatures. He always had.

Newt was a quivering embarrassment to Lysander. A failure figure, a portrait of everything Lysander wanted not to be. He’d said as much before.

But the secret was that he agreed.

The less like him Lysander was, the better.

Newt sat on the stool Tina had occupied earlier, the heels of his boots hooking on the bottom rung, and he stared at his son. He was too afraid to do this when Lysander was awake… too afraid to look into those eyes, where he could see the light flickering, threatening to go out. His hand sort of hovered over Lysander’s arm a moment, then drew back, afraid. He closed his eyes.

Lysander had been studying to be an auror, like his mum had been.

Lysander had been going to be great.

He was great already, in Newt and Tina’s eyes.

But he was going to be great in the world’s eyes as well.

He hadn’t told anyone about the illness when it started. First a spell backfiring here or there, or else magic being cast with no explanation at all - like a child before they learn to control it. His girlfriend, Jenny, had told him to get checked - she’d seen it happen - and he had insisted he was okay. But then the pains had started, the magic building up in his bones and destroying them from the inside out. Erumpetis they called it. A magical disease in which the powers one possess turned against them, moving through their body and overpowering the organs and bones and muscles one at a time - like an erumpent blasting its way through a forest of trees - unstoppable and unpredictable… at some point, it would be some vital piece that would blow… and Lysander would be gone.

Newt rocked himself on the stool, holding his forehead.

If any one of his creatures had contracted erumpetis, he would have stopped the suffering long before the point that Lysander was at now and the clinical, pragmatic part of him wished the MACUSA laws were different. The father in him was glad they weren’t, glad for every moment he could have with his son. The part of him that embarrassed Lysander was just praying to have the courage to speak an apology to him before it happened.

Or at least to get the courage to touch his son’s hand.

To tell him he was there at all.




Sirius, Lily, and James were sitting at the end of the pier by sunset, their feet hanging over the edge, leaning against the middle bar of the rail and looking over the sea - Lily in the middle, the two boys on either side - sharing a warm pretzel that Lily had bought. The water was being painted scarlet and orange by the sun as it dipped toward the horizon, a great orb of brilliant light. James took out the cigarette pack and offered one to Sirius and Lily. Sirius took one, but Lily refused. She watched as the two boys lit their cigarettes and the smoke streamed from their mouths over the waterscape before them.

They were children and adults at exactly the same moment, she realized, a fragile state of being - a middle ground where the world was simultaneously light and dark, much like the dusk that was setting in about them. She watched James Potter’s cigarette hanging from his fingertips, watched the ashes glow amber at the tip, watched as he flicked them off and they flew, like fireflies, dancing in the wind, spinning and sparking out below them in the dark water… Far above, lavender and still trying to eke it’s way into sight, was the disc of the moon.

Sirius’s voice was quiet as he sang,

I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow…
Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moooooonshadow, moonshadow…
If I ever lose my legs, I won’t moan and I won’t beg
If I ever lose my legs, oh if… I won’t have to walk no more
And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south
Oh if I ever lose my mouth, oh if… I won’t have to talk.
Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light…
Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night…
Oh I’m being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow
Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow, moooonshadow moonshadow…
Moonshadow, moonshadow…


James’s smoke slipped away over the sea as he exhaled, and he thought of his father.

Silence fell over them and far below they could hear the crashing waves….

“What do you reckon Moony’s doing right now?” whispered Sirius.

“Howling,” James answered flatly.

The three of them were quiet a long moment.

Then…

“OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!! OWOWWOWOW!!!!!!” Sirius shouted, mimicking the sound Remus Lupin made on full moon nights, scaring the life out of Lily, who jumped at the sudden eruption of sound. James looked over and the next thing she knew, James had leaped to his feet, cupped his palms ‘round his mouth and started in too.

“OWOOWOWWW-ARRRRRROOOOOOOOOOO!” James cried.

“OWOWOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!” Sirius yelled, jumping up, too.

They howled, throwing back their heads to the moon, loud and shrill and warbling over the vowels. And then James held out a hand to Lily and looked down at her as Sirius’s howl echoed over the water. Lily hesitated only a moment, then let him pull her up and she took a deep breath and yelled out, “AAAARRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRROOOOOOOO!!!” Sirius screamed.

People were looking from all over at the three crazy kids howling at the moon.