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Happy Mewmories


It took some time, quite a lot of maneuvering to steer the wolf in the opposite direction of Lily Evans and a good deal of nipping and growling from Sirius to get Rey back to at least being under Sirius’s control as Alpha-Beta. For over an hour Sirius and James worked together to herd the werewolf back through the forest, back to the Shrieking Shack, where Sirius got the wolf inside and James used his antlers to tug the door shut.

The moment the door closed - the wolf within, the dog and stag without - Sirius popped into his human form and he lunged at the still transforming stag, clutching at James’s half-changed jumper-covered chest and he shook him, “POTTER! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!” he yelled and he slammed James against the wall of the house. “You know how Rey is! He’s going to bloody blitz when he hears what he’s done, scaring Evans like that! You bleedin’ idiot! He could’ve killed her!”

James’s transformation completed, his face smooshing into shape, the texture of his nose returning to normal and tears hot against his cheeks. “I DIDN’T DO IT ON PURPOSE!” James shouted the instant he could, “YOU THINK FOR A SECOND I’D PUT LILY EVANS IN DANGER?! FOR EVEN A SECOND?!”

Sirius’s eyes softened as James’s distraught features came into focus… the wrinkles ‘round his forehead, the abject pain in his eyes... “Oi... Mate, what happened?”

James’s glasses were still broken on one side, his nose and cheeks pink from crying, his eyes nearly crossed from stress and exhaustion… He slid down the wall until he’d landed on the porch floor, his legs sprawled out before him and he leaned back so he was looking up at the ceiling. James tried to remember how to breathe like a human being. It was a lot harder than it should’ve been.

“Occulus reparo,” Sirius said, taking his wand from his hair, so the mane cascaded down his back in a great swoop, and tapping the frames of James’s glasses and at least ending one small bit of his suffering.

Inside, the wolf was scratching at the door, growling and trying to get out. Sirius kicked the door. “Shut up in there! You’ve done enough marauding for tonight, you great drooling muppet!” he called out. He turned back to James. “What happened?”

“I told Evans.” James covered his eyes. “She didn’t take it well.”

“You don’t say?” Sirius said sarcastically. “I worked that much out.”

James muttered, “She hates me. Worse than before. Like actually officially hates me now.”

“You’ve just saved her life, though, so she sort of owes you a bit, I reckon.”

“I was far more in her debt than she’d ever be in mine,” James said, shaking his head. “I could save her life a thousand times over and I’d still owe her one.” He stared at his feet. “I was an idiot for not telling her before.”

Sirius sighed.

The wolf was still bouncing against the door, his growls becoming more vicious the longer he tried to escape, the longer Sirius was out of his dog form. But as long as he was bouncing off the door, then he wasn’t biting himself so Sirius let him have at it. He sat down next to James. “What in hell made you tell her tonight, on a full moon? In the ruddy woods?”

James looked at his knees, “She… she was being friendly. She came to the try outs and… she waved at me.” James looked at Sirius with sad eyes. “And after, she came down on the pitch and… she actually said I did a good job.”

Sirius’s eyebrows raised, “Lily Evans said that?”

James nodded.

“Specifically to you?”

He nodded again.

“Lily Evans said good job James?”

“I think she said Potter actually, but yes.”

“Clearly somebody confunded her.”

James sniffled. Normally that would’ve made him laugh. It was a mark of how thoroughly exhausted and depressed he was that he didn’t even chuckle. He stared at his hands.

Sirius nudged him, “You used to think I was funny.”

James didn’t react.

This was clearly very serious, Sirius realized, and he frowned. “So you told her ‘cos she said good job?” he prodded.

James sighed. “I told her because I thought she was in a pro-Potter sort of mood and maybe she’d be more... I dunno… more understanding because of it. But she didn’t understand. She got really angry and she ran into the woods to get away from me and I went after her… that’s how we ended up by the lake there, and…” He suddenly realized she’d run off again and was probably lost somewhere in the dark, probably terrified from the wolf and Merlin knew what else she could run into in the woods! Just because he knew where the werewolf was -- there were other horrors that lived in the Forbidden Forest (not the least of which was that great spider, Aragog, not to mention the Centaurs). He had to go after her - to save her. “Shizer. Sirius, I gotta go back!” He started to get up but Sirius grabbed him and yanked him back down.

“Peter’s with her. He was in her pocket.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.” Sirius patted James’s knee. “She’ll be okay. He’ll get her back. I’m sure they’re on the grounds to the school already.”

James heaved a sigh and covered his face. He felt a wave of guilt for bringing her anywhere near the woods - there were plenty of places in the castle he could’ve brought her to show her the stag. Plenty of reasons why not to go to the dark woods… But he’d wanted it to be all poetic and beautiful, wanted her to find out there, in that clearing, in their special spot, where she’d fed the stag feed and he’d nuzzled her… He’d wanted her to find out some place she was familiar with and felt safe in. Now she’d never feel safe there again, he realized, and that made him feel even more guilty. And he felt guilty, too, because he hadn’t even thought of poor Peter - it hadn’t even crossed his mind to wonder where he was at all, not even once in all of what had gone on. James leaned into his own knees, feeling like absolute and utter rubbish. “I’m a right git,” he whispered.

Sirius ran his hand over James’s back and they sat in silence for a long moment. Silence so thick that James could hear the far-off voices coming up over the ridge from Hogsmeade, where a bar door opening had let loud music escape for a moment before fading off into silence again.

The silence seemed oddly out of place, even for a dark night.

And then James realized why.

“Sirius,” James murmured.

“What?” Sirius asked.

“The wolf’s not banging on the door anymore.”

“Shit.” Sirius got up and he sighed, “Can you let me in? Paws don’t open doors well.”

James nodded, and he watched as Sirius transformed back into Snuffles, then he leaned over, twisting the knob, let the dog in, and pulled the door shut tight right behind Sirius as his tail disappeared through the doorway. Alone once more, James hugged his knees… the cold burning his nose and his toes, and eventually he just rolled to one side and fell asleep on the porch of the Shrieking Shack.




The next morning, Sirius dragged James in the moment Remus was turned back. They all had bruises and scrapes galore. James nose was a bit out of place from the branch that had hit him and Sirius had to use the episky charm to fix it (though it wasn’t quite the same even after that). Remus had bite marks all down his back from where Sirius had been nipping him, keeping him from Evans, and Sirius had a pretty good mark on his neck (“it’s like a hickey, really,” he said proudly, trying to make his Moony feel better). James stared at the dusty floor of the Shack and wished the pain would go away - pain that had nothing to do with the marred skin.

Remus felt terrible about Lily, just as Sirius had said, but he felt even worse about James, that Lily had been so awfully upset about the whole thing. “I would’ve understood,” he explained, “If it was me. I mean, you couldn’t tell her before now…”

Sirius said, “I dunno, I understand where she’s coming from myself, I mean she told him really private stuff she wouldn’t have done if she’d known it was him.”

“But she loved the stag because it listened to her and James will listen to her!” Remus argued. “James’ll take care of her and --”

James looked up, “Can we stop discussing it?” he’d run it over and over and over in his head and he didn’t reckon he could bare even another minute of it.

“Yeah, course we can, mate,” Sirius said.

But they were back at it less than twenty minutes later and James didn’t have th energy to tell them to stop again.

It was Hogsmeade weekend, so rather than go back through the dark nasty tunnel and risk being seen coming out of the Whomping Willow’s trunk by students crossing the grounds, Sirius suggested they go back to the castle via the town and stop in for a butterbeer pick-me-up on the way. James would’ve preferred to go right to Hogwarts. Sleeping on the porch of the Shrieking Shack had resulted in a terrible chill that shivered it’s way up and down his spine. Sirius gave him his leather jacket and walked through the town in nothing but a t-shirt, his hands deep in his pockets, his ridiculously long Gryffindor scarf wound about his neck about five times and still hanging past his knees.

Remus, however, was thankful for the time to sit and the warm butterbeer, his fingers stiff with the cold and the unfolding of his finger bones from the shape that his hands took when they became paws, the knuckles tight. “You look like a little old man,” said Sirius as they sat in the booth in Madam Rosmerta’s. He reached over and rubbed Remus’s hands gently, massaging the muscles and the bone with his own fingers, which were much warmer naturally than Remus’s and Remus leaned into him.

“What in the bloody hell happened to you lot?” Frank Longbottom suddenly appeared at the table, his arm around Ali Prewitt, who clutched his hand as he hung it over her shoulder.

James shook his head.

“Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies, Franky,” Sirius said brightly. “You drinking? I’m buying. Well. Potter’s buying but one day I’ll buy him something really nice to make up for it.” He put his arm around James and rubbed his shoulder.

Frank and Ali sat down.

“So… uh… I take it last night went… badly?” Frank asked, looking at James.

“You haven’t any idea.”

“Did you ask her out?” Ali asked.

“Something like that.”

“Sorry, mate, that’s rough,” Frank said. He sighed. “You know, I got Ali here by making her a chocolate frog card. Maybe you ought to try a grand romantic gesture?”

Sirius snorted, “He’s done that.”

Ali reached over and took James’s hand gently, looking at his eyes. He looked at her for a moment, then averted his gaze. “You want my honest opinion?” she asked.

“If it’s let her go then no.”

Ali patted his hand, then leaned back, letting it drop to the table. “I’m just saying, it might be time. Give her some space. Whatever it is that’s gone on… she needs time to get over it and… I dunno, maybe if you just… weren’t so show-offy…”

James stared at the table. “Yeah, maybe. Doubt it, though…” he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I am or do, really.” He shrugged and stood up. “Here.” He tossed a couple galleons on the table. “You lot stay and enjoy the butterbeer.” He turned and walked out of the pub.

He was walking down the street, past all the shops and the happy, laughing people about the square. Still cold, James shoved his hands into the pockets of Sirius’s leather jacket. And he felt something there. He pulled it out.

It was a crumpled, folded up card.

Curious, James stepped out of the way of everyone moving about the street and he ducked into an alley between the owl post and Zonko’s, his back to the brick wall, echoing voices surrounding him, but feeling far off as he unfolded the card. It was a birthday card. James realized suddenly that Sirius’s birthday was, indeed, less than a week away (Blimey, was it already only a week left of October? And Halloween was coming up, too! Where’d the time gone?)... this one had obviously come early. He smirked at the far too colourful picture of a cat of all things - whoever sent this didn’t understand Sirius Black at all, he thought, and he opened the card up. Clearly, Sirius had saved this to mock with them all later...

But James’s laughter died away when his eyes moved over the interior of the card.

There was nothing but the generic message. May your special day be filled with happy mew-mories. Beneath that was a very stiff signature.

Walburga R. Black.

Not mum, not mother... not even just Walburga - but the full, horrid name, all spelled out properly and tight.

James carefully refolded the card exactly how Sirius had had it and jammed it down into the pocket.