[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
What’s the Plan, Potter?


Newt Scamander had left the grounds of Hogwarts.

After all, he would be a very poor magizoologist indeed if he knew where there was a werewolf on the night of the full moon and failed to observe the creature’s change.

Newt was sitting now in a booth at the Hog’s Head, across from Rubeus Hagrid, clutching a pint of cold butterbeer with thick gobs of ice cream floating within it. Hagrid was sopping up tears from his eyes. “Yeh was always my greatest hero, Mr. Scamander!” Hagrid croaked loudly. He blew his nose like a trumpet. “Means the world ter me that yeh’re settin’ here havin’ a drink with me now.” He took a long sip of the oak matured mead he was drinking.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” stammered Newt, keeping his eyes trained very carefully on the stein before him. He blew a couple bubbles with his straw, a childish smile crossing his lips as they popped. He glanced at his watch. “You said you’re expecting your friend Mr. Veigler?”

“Ah yeah,” Hagrid said, nodding, “Once a month me an’ ol’ Ned get tergether and have a drink here at the Hog’s Head.”

“Once a month you say?” Newt asked, discreetly slipping a tiny notebook from his vest pocket. “Any particular day?”

“On the day o’ the full moon,” Hagrid nodded, “Veigler says that’s the most interestin’ time there is in Hogsmeade. Lots of unusual folk ‘round the full moon,” he explained.

Newt Scamander nodded. “And… do these little, er, get - get togethers…. Do they last long?”

Hagrid shook his head, “Not usually very long, no. Mr. Veigler has a lot ter do. It’s really very nice o’ him ter be takin’ the time out his day to spend with me ‘t’all.”

Newt nodded slowly, thinking on what Hagrid had just said. He leaned back, glancing at the windows. Far off and away, he could just see the outline of the castle over the trees as the evening came.

“Same as you - bein’ nice ter me when yer don’t really haf’ter be!” Hagrid took a shuddering sigh of glee and clutched his handkerchief. “Mr. Scamander, when I was a young boy goin’ ter Hogwarts, I always dreamt’er becomin’ a magizoologist,” Hagrid mumbled thickly. “T’was my passion. I wanted ter be the next you.”

Newt looked at Hagrid.

“I asked for a case like yeh have there ev’ry year on my birthday,” he said, “I wanted ter travel the world like you and collect magical beasts ter study ‘em ‘n learn more an’ more ‘bout them.” Hagrid looked wistful.

Newt sipped his drink. “And what - what happened that stopped you?” he asked.

“Got me self expelled,” Hagrid said sadly.

“What for?”

Hagrid stared into his mead, “Raisin’ me a - a friend.”

“A friend?”

“A pet, really.”

“A - a pet?”

Hagrid leaned real close, “An acromantula. Named him Aragog.”

Newt stared at Hagrid. “You… you, uh, you named an acromantula, did you?” he asked with an uneasy chuckle. “You’re kidding?”

Hagrid shook his head.

“You - you’re serious then?” Newt leaned forward. “How are you alive?”

“Aragog ‘n me are real friends,” Hagrid explained, “True friends. He un’er stands me like nobody else in this world!”

“Understands you?”

“As sommat’s been misunderstood,” Hagrid nodded, “I been misunderstood most my life, and so’s Aragog been, too.”

Newt Scamander stared at Hagrid, quite unsure what to think. His teeth rested on his lower lip as he thought about the things Hagrid had just said. His interest was, of course, peaked from a professional point of view. “You - you speak as though you’re, you’re, uh, still - in - in touch with Mr. Aragog…?”

“Ah I am in touch!” Hagrid exclaimed happily, “Ol’ Gogy an’ me, we see each other frequently. I visit him an’ his beau’i’ful family.”

“You’ve - you have an entire cluster of acromantula?” Newt was dismayed. The desire on his face to observe that was suddenly beginning to outweigh the desire to see the werewolf in action. After all, if one really needed to observe werewolves… well what else was the Dark Forest there for if not that? The idea of a cluster of acromantula, though… that hadn’t been formally observed in ages!

“Well I haven’t got ‘em, they’re livin’ on their own now, see, away from Hogwarts, in the Foridden Forest. The night I got me self expelled, I freed him out into the wild ter save him from gettin’ the axe! Course since then he’s had a family,” Hagrid exclaimed merrily, “Did yeah ‘spect him to be by hisself fer all his life?”

Newt Scamander shook his head, “No, of corse not…” he paused and looked Hagrid over. “Would - would you be interested in, uh… in introducing me to - to Mr. Aragog?” he asked.

“Interested!?” Hagrid beamed, “I’d be damned honored ter do it, and Gogy would love ter see yeh!”

Newt was pleased.




James and Peter hurried down the stairs from the dormitory, carrying the invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map, along with their wands. They pulled on the warmest clothes they owned as they rushed for the portrait of the Fat Lady. James was just reaching for the knob when the portrait hole swung open and there, on her way in from the corridor, was Lily Evans. She looked them over, at their breathless pink-cheeked faces and the layers of clothes they’d bundled up in. “Where are you headed?” she asked, suspiciously.

James tucked the Map into his pocket. “No place,” he replied.

She glanced in at the common room. “Does this have something to do with Remus?” she asked, “Is he alright?”

James shook his head, “Far as I know he is. It’s not Remus we’re after. It’s something else entirely.”

Lily looked over their clothes again, then her eyes met James’s solidly. “You’re going outside.”

“Probably,” James admitted. “You don’t want to go getting in any trouble, so you better run along before you do.”

Lily asked, “What’s outside that you’re going to see?”

James hesitated.

“Is it something to do with the Dark Lord again?” she asked nervously, thinking of third year.

“Sort of,” Peter said at exactly the same time as James said, “No, of course not.” James boxed Peter’s shoulder.

Lily shook her head, “No. You can’t do that, don’t be foolish.”

“Ah but we are, Evans,” James said lightly, “So you’ve got two options. Go on inside and forget you ever saw us, or get your cloaks and come be foolish with us.” He paused. “You’ve got, like, maybe five seconds to decide before we go without you. Five…”

Lily bit her lip, “But - is it dangerous, what you’re doing? What does it entail, exactly?”

“Four…”

“Oh fine. Wait here. I’ll get my cloaks.” Lily hurriedly climbed in and ran for the girls dormitory.

When he dormitory door had closed behind her, James looked to Peter. “You know, she’s getting better at this. Last term, it would’ve taken all five of those seconds. Or else she would’ve just gone to bed.”

Peter laughed.




The three of them squashed under the invisibility cloak and headed down the stairs to the entrance hall and out onto the grounds. When they reached a moonlit spot with their backs against the castle, hidden by the walls of the greenhouses, where the drifts of snow were high enough to block them from even the tallest towers. James pulled the cloak from over their heads.

“Alright,” Lily whispered. “What’s the plan?”

James whispered, “Dunno actually.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the map.

“You dunno? How do you not know? What is it that we’re doing exactly? You still haven’t told me even that much, I -- what the hell is that?” She looked down at the map, at the moving dots all over it. Her eyes were wide. “Is that… Is that Hogwarts?”

James looked up at her, “You like it?”

“Where did you get that?”

“We’ve made it,” James said, “Took us three years… and really we aren’t done yet. It was Sirius’s idea.” He puffed up, “But I did a good deal of the work on it, too.”

Lily recognized Remus’s drawing skills, though, and she ran her fingers over the parchment gently, “Wow.” Then she noticed the labels on the dots and she squinted down at them and her jaw dropped. “Is that really… is that --?”

“Yeah, look - see - here we are.” He pointed to their dots by the greenhouses. “Every person in the whole castle. You can see their every move.”

Lily looked up at him, “That’s very advanced magic, I’m sure. Where did you lot learn how to do that?”

“We found it in a book and we just -- you know, gave it a go.” James was very pleased she was so impressed with the map. He grinned brightly at her.

“Remus found it, actually,” Peter said, giving credit where credit was due. “He drew it too. Basically all we’ve done is walk around with him looking at the castle.” James glanced at Peter with a withering look and Peter shut up.

Lily finally looked up from the map after several long moments of staring at it, mesmerized, and asked, “So what are we doing again?”

“We’re getting proof that Professor Veigler is a dirty double crosser actually a werewolf,” James replied quickly.

Lily’s expression was one of pure confusion, “We’re what?”

Peter reached across James suddenly, “LOOK! LOOK! Newt Scamander! And he’s on the edge of the Forbidden Forest! And look he’s --- with Hagrid.” Peter jabbed his finger at the two dots. Sure enough, there they were, and it appeared they were going into the Forbidden Forest… Hagrid leading the way.

James’s eyes widened, remembering Sirius’s question about Hagrid being under the imperius curse. A horrible plot twisted through James’s mind. What if Newt Scamander had found out about Professor Veigler being a werewolf? What if Sirius was right and Hagrid was under the imperius curse? What if Veigler had made Hagrid go and kidnap Newt and drag him into the forest? What if Newt was trying to escape… and what they were seeing was Hagrid dragging him back to his certain death at the jaws of the werewolves?

“Bloody hell.” James quickly started folding the map, jamming it in his pocket. “We’ve got to save Newt! C’MON!”

“Save - Save Newt? From what?” Lily wailed as she and Peter ran after James, who’d already bolted away, kicking up snow from his feet as he went, leaving the prints across the grounds. Lily looked back behind them and the way the moon reflected on the snow made the prints dark as if they’d stepped in an ink pot. “Obscuro,” she waved her wand and they smoothed over. “Obscuro,” she called again periodically, erasing the tracks they were leaving behind.

Peter was panting by the time they’d reached the edge of the woods behind James, who had stopped just a few feet in where the trees were too thick for the snow to have gone. Lily shivered. Their robes were all soaked about the ankles now and there was snow in her mary jane shoes. She wiggled her toes to warm them up and her socks squished uncomfortably. She looked around at the menacing trees looming about them, having flashbacks of first year and their journey to go and see the Dark Lord. She clutched her wand to her, “Lumos,” she whispered, illuminating the end of it. She looked at James with nervous eyes.

“What’s the plan, Potter?” she asked.

“Shhh,” James hissed, cupping his ear. “Hagrid’s huge - we should be able to hear him a mile away tromping through the trees and the brush. We follow them. We figure out what’s going on, and we save Newt Scamander.”

It was barely a plan, but it was all he had. Hagrid would lead them to Veigler, he was sure of it. So they listened carefully to the quiet in the trees.

If only one of the dogs were here, James thought, thinking of Sirius and Remus’s sharp hearing.

Peter pointed through the trees, “That way,” he said.

They didn’t hesitate. All three of them hurried through the trees after the sound that Peter had heard, and soon all three of them could hear it. Hagrid wasn’t very graceful at plowing through the branches, making him somewhat easy to track down. The further into the forest they got, the darker it became. They were going into a different part of it than they’d ever been before and the darkness seemed to begin to engulf them here, and soon all they could see of each other was their fists ‘round their illuminated wands, like beacons in the night. Far ahead, too, they could just make out the pale dot of light that must have been Hagrid’s lantern, bobbing off further and further.

As they walked, James filled Lily in on their theory about Veigler being a werewolf and Sirius’s theory that Hagrid was under the imperius curse. “That’s crazy,” Lily said, but she shivered and followed after them through the trees, wondering.

It seemed like hours. They’d been walking for forever, James was certain of it. He had scratches all over his face from branches hitting him, twigs clawing at his skin that he couldn’t see because it was just so bloody dark and then they came up to the crest of a hill and the trees were sparser and there was a bit of moonlight and they could see down into a little valley among the trees. It was almost like looking down over the edge of an inverted clamshell - the valley was wide at this end and narrow at the other, ending in a mound of rock and black cave. In the curve of the valley below, stood Hagrid… and Newt Scamander, who looked very nervous indeed, looking around with wildly wide eyes.

“Bet Veigler’s in that cave,” whispered James.

Lily hunkered down beside a log, peering over. Peter and James did the same and the three of them watched nervously.

“ARAGOG….” Hagrid called out.

“Must be a password or something,” whispered Peter.

“ARAGOG…” Hagrid shouted again.

And there was movement in the mouth of the cave. The darkness within it seemed to shift and move and shimmer in the moonlight and James leaned forward, eager to see what was happening. It seemed a giant, craggy stone was moving out of the cave, like Hagrid’s password had opened it up… but then a long, hairy stick of a thing extended from the stone in the moonlight… and another… and another… and another…

It was Lily who first realized what it was. “Oh. My. Bloody. Hell.” Her voice was a low whisper, a panic, and she gasped, covering her eyes, “Oh Merlin, what is that thing!”

The spider - a spider as big as Hagrid was tall - had pulled itself out of the mouth of the cave, it’s twisty, horrid legs extending out until it’s big, wide, fat body had popped from the cave and there it stood in it’s hairy, horrible glory, blinking down at Hagrid and Newt with eight very large, blinking eyes and two terrible, saliva-dripping pinchers.

“Acromantula,” whispered James, eyes wide.

James and Peter were both stock still as well.

None of them could breathe.

“ARAGOG… Look what I’ve brought yeh!” Hagrid was quite proud. “It’s Newt Scamander!”

“Ohhh no, no, no,” Lily hissed, “He’s going to feed Mr. Scamander to that - that thing! I can’t watch.” She turned away to cover her eyes… but she bumped into something… Something with a hairy bulbous body and eight long legs that had descended from the trees on a shining silver thread.

It clicked it’s pincher at her.

Lily’s scream echoed through the trees of the forest.