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You Smell Like Dog


Evans,
Happy Christmas. I know you’re cross with me, but I also know how hard this Christmas will be for you. I wanted you to know I’m wishing you the best. Try to see beauty in the twinkle lights, even if they shine through tears. Your dad would want you to be happy.
All my love,
James Potter


Lily stood in her bedroom holding the note, which had been scrawled inside a holiday card with a picture of a cat on the front with a holiday wreath ‘round its head. The card had come with Bubo only moments before. It was early on the morning of 24 December and outside there was snow falling thick and white, shimmering in the sunlight. Bubo sat on top of her Hogwarts trunk, ruffling her feathers and looking at Lily with wide lantern-like eyes. Lily had invited the owl inside to warm-up from the nasty cold and Bubo looked grateful for it, even though Lily had no owl treats to give her. She watched, her head turning in that funny way owls do, as Lily sank into her desk chair. She opened a drawer and pulled out a quill and a bit of parchment and she wrote:

Thank you Potter. Happy Christmas to you, too.

She stopped there and stared at the letters, unsure what else to write. That she was sorry about Severus turning up and ruining everything? That she wished things could’ve gone differently, that she wished she knew what to do, who to believe, and how to let go of a past she was afraid to let go of? Especially in a time like this, when her dad was gone and everything else was so uncertain. Severus was the closest thing to steady in her wizarding life. And yeah it’d been up and down and up and down with Severus, but he was always there when she needed him. But then so hadn’t the stag. But if James had done all that to Severus -- but then if he hadn’t… Oh there was just so many ifs and so many what to dos and Lily’s heart and head ached with it all and she felt driven to tears by it.

She folded the note before tears could dot the page and she pushed it into an envelope and spellotaped it shut. “Here, Bubo,” she said, giving the note to the owl. “Whenever you’re ready to go back to him, there’s his letter.” She wished there was a way to envelope her feelings into it and let James feel them all, maybe then he’d understand.

Bubo took the note importantly in her beak and she fluttered to the window and Lily opened it up and watched as the owl flew off - a brown speck in the white that filled the sky. She stared after it until she’d disappeared.




“What’s your favorite magical creature you’ve ever had, Mr. Scamander?” Regulus asked. He was sitting in the chair opposite Newt in the stables as Newt was flipping through books on aconite and its properties, comparing it to another textbook of ingredients and rubbing his chin.

Newt looked up, his eyes focusing on Regulus as though he’d only just realized the boy was there. “What now?”

Regulus had been sitting there for over an hour in silence after Newt Scamander had signed his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He’d even drawn a bowtruckle next to his name. Regulus had then sat staring at the autograph and flipping through the book for sometime. He’d read all the way to the entry on Dragons before he looked up at the magizoologist across from him. They’d both been so absorbed in their reading material that the time had passed, barely noticed.

“What’s your favorite of all the magical creatures?” Regulus repeated his question.

“That’s… thats very hard, I’m not - not prone to favoritism, usually.” He paused, “Well, I was accused once. Because of Pickett.” Newt patted his coat pocket, “Very shy in his old age. Used to pop out anytime. Lately he only comes out if he knows its just me and Teeny.” He opened the pocket and peeked in, “You ought to be m-making friends now and again, there, Pickett.” He let the pocket close and mused, “And there’s - there’s Dougal, my demiguise. And - and I have a funny bird - he - he doesn’t do much, but I like him. He’s funny. He’s - he’s the only creature on this earth that’ll eat the meatpie Tina makes. I know this for certain as I’ve tried to feed my portions of it to - to the other creatures before when she’s - she’s not, uh, looking, but not a soul besides Hockley will touch it. That’s his - his name -- Hockley. He’s a Great Auk, I think. Technically a, uh, a muggle bird, but his species has been extinct for a hundred years and he’s still alive so I, uh, I have reason to believe he’s not really what he looks like he is. I haven’t ever found anything else that’s - that’s like him though. So, uh, we may never know. I’m quite fond of my Niffler, too, though she’s a little bugger. Steals anything she can get her - her hands on so long as it’s shiny.”

“What is Pickett?”

“A bowtruckle.”

“Like the one you drew in my book.”

“Exactly like him. It’s him I’ve - I’ve drawn.” Newt looked back down at the book on the desk before him. He asked, “Do - do you have a favorite creature?”

“House Elves.”

“Ah yes, we - we talked about them. I remember. Kreacher. And - and how is Kreacher? Did - did you ask him about the arthritis?”

Regulus shook his head.

“Well, it’s arthritis weather, might be a - a good time to check on him.” Newt rubbed his own knuckles knowingly.

Regulus nodded. “I will ask him.”

“Very good,” Newt nodded, then turned back to his book more officially.

So Regulus turned back to his, too, and they both sat reading in silence once again as the snow fell outside and the sun rose higher and higher in the sky.




Sirius was sitting in a chair by the bedroom window, staring out at the snow falling over the field in the backyard of the Potters’ during the mid-morning the day before Christmas. They’d been helping Mrs. Potter with Christmas cookie-making, which she’d decided to try doing the muggle way for the fun of it, and it had resulted in a four fight among the three boys - something that had broken out after Remus sneezed and accidentally blew a good deal of flour into Sirius’s face. It’d all gone down hill from there and they’d all ended up coated like they’d gone out in the snow. When it wrapepd up, they had all taken it in turns to go off to change their shirts, and Sirius had excused himself to run upstairs nearly twenty minutes ago and never come back down.

Remus pushed open the door. “Taking an awfully long time for you to change your shirt, Padfoot. I know for a fact you can take your clothes off faster than this.” He smirked as he closed the door behind him.

Sirius looked up. “Sorry,” he said. “I got distracted. Look.” He pointed to the window. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“Yeah, it is,” Remus answered. He went over and squashed in next to Sirius, half on his lap, and stared out, too. “Weird to think it’s just cold water, flash frozen as it falls to the earth, isn’t it?”

Sirius looked at Remus with a smirk, “Wow, way to romanticize it, Rey,” he said with a smirk, “Take the magic right out of it.”

“It’s still magic,” Remus replied. “Just because it’s explained doesn’t mean it isn’t magic. Magic is just power at work, isn’t it? Properties being altered by other properties. The less explainable phenomenons aren’t any more magical than the explainable. We just haven’t figured out how to explain them all yet. That’s all. There’s loads of stuff that can be explained that are still magical. Snow happens to be one of them.”

Sirius leaned his head against Remus’s shoulder and yawned.

“Boring you, am I?”

“No, it’s just you’re warm and soft and I’m very comfortable right now,” murmured Sirius.

“It’s because I have three jumpers on.”

“Three! Bloody hell. If I wore three jumpers at a time, I’d burn alive.”

Remus laughed.

“No wonder you’re soft. It’s all that bloody padding,” Sirius murmured, snuggling his nose into the folds of body-heat in Remus’s sweater. “I love how you smell, like hot chocolate and dusty books and old worn out jumpers.”

Remus leaned his head against Sirius’s.

“How do I smell, Moony?”

Remus hesitated.

Sirius looked up. “Moony?”

Remus hesitated. He didn’t think Sirius would take very well what he thought he smelled like. But he didn’t know how to get out of telling him, either. “Like Sirius.”

“Which is how?”

“Sort of… uh… like… uhm…”

“You’re stuttering as bad as Newt Scamander,” Sirius accused. “Out with it.”

“Yousmelllikeadog.”

“Come again?”

“Like a dog. You smell. Like a. Dog.”

Sirius stared at him.

“Sorry.”

“I shower every single day.”

“I know.”

“I’ve showered three times since I turned into Snuffles last.”

“I know.”

“Rey.”

“What?”

“I still smell like dog?”

“Relax, I think it’s only me that smells it.”

“Well bloody hell I don’t want my boyfriend smelling dog when he’s ‘round me!”

Remus couldn’t help but smile at the panic in Sirius’s face. “I think it’s lovely.”

“Lovely?” Sirius gasped, “Lovely? That I smell like a dog?”

“Yeah.”

Sirius stared at Remus like he had seven heads on his shoulders, “You’re mad.”

“It’s you. It’s your smell. It’s - it’s the smell of the person I love. I - I like it.”

“You can’t. You can’t possibly.”

“I do.”

Sirius shoved his face under his shirt and took a deep breath, but he couldn’t smell anything except the soap he’d used that morning. He looked up at Remus, desperate. “And I can’t even wear cologne ‘cos last time it almost bloody killed you.”

“It did not almost bloody kill me.”

Sirius looked very stressed.

“Merlin’s beard, calm down,” Remus pleaded. “I didn’t mean to work you up.”

Sirius wriggled out from under him.

“Sirius…” Remus got up and caught Sirius’s arm. He stared into his eyes with amusement sparkling in them as Sirius looked up at him. “I really do like the way you smell. I didn’t mean dog like a bad thing.” He held Sirius out at arms length, “Mate, you literally just told me I smell like dusty books and old jumpers, you can’t possibly think dog is more offensive than old jumpers? Old jumpers implies body odor!”

Sirius laughed.

“See? There we are. Now you’re laughing again.”

“You’re sure I don’t repulse you?”

“Positive. Just keep away from that bleedin’ cologne you had on for Yule Ball. That repulsed me.”

Sirius pressed his face against Remus’s chest. Remus patted his back. “Oh Padfoot, what am I going to do with you, always going off on your first impulse, never waiting for people to explain… I bleedin’ love you, but we’ve got to figure out a way to teach you to pause and think instead of flipping off the handle at your first whim…” Remus reached down and tilted Sirius’s chin up to look him in the eyes. “It’ll get you in trouble one day and what if I’m not there to talk you down?”

Sirius smirked, “Guess you better just stay with me all the time, huh?”

Remus laughed, “You’re impossible.”

“If I was impossible, I wouldn’t exist.”

“Shh.”




An owl came that afternoon with Lily Evans’s note for James. He stood in his bedroom, the window open, cold air billowing in and fluttering the curtains about him, covered in flour that Sirius had chucked at him, his glasses the only non-flour covered part of his face, and stared at the note.

Thank you Potter. Happy Christmas to you, too.

He sighed and put the note down on his bed, reaching in the dresser for the owl treats. His fingers grazed the invisibility cloak and for a moment he thought about pulling it on and hiding under the bed again. It was nice, being invisible when you were upset. It made things seem a little less scary, as though if the world couldn’t see you, then it couldn’t hurt you, and you could just lay and breathe and recuperate… He closed the drawer without removing it, though. Sirius would just pull him out from under the bed again anyway.

James stood by the window in the snowy wind that was coming in and handed Bubo her owl treats, which she snapped out of his palm eagerly. When she was finished, he shooed her into her cage and closed the window, then picked Lily’s note back up.

Finally, he folded it and stuck it into his trousers pocket and changed his shirt, using his old one to wipe the flour off his face.

He felt something stirring in him. Something between hurt and anger. Something that bubbled. It wasn’t fair. Sirius was right. It wasn’t fair. None of it was. His dad being sick, his mum being sad, his heart being broken because of bloody Snivellus Slimey Stupid Snape, lying and saying he was a bully, that he’d beat him up when he’d laid his wand down in the name of not fighting with him! Bully! Really, if James Potter had wanted to bully Severus Snape - he’d bloody know it.

Whatever Severus Snape had made himself look like that night, James Potter could’ve made him look ten times worse if he’d actually done the bullying.

Not that it mattered to Evans. She was mad at him whether he was a bully for real or not. Always believing Snivelly. Always thinking the worst of James.

James wiped his glasses off and shoved them back on his face.

Well, he thought, if it was a bully they wanted, perhaps it was a bully he should be.

After all, if the universe wasn’t going to play fair, then why in bleeding hell should he?