16 July 2003
Stag Night
~ IV ~
Peter took a deep breath and raised his eyes. James.
Sirius. Remus. They looked at him with a mixture of amusement, pity, and
curiosity, a look familiar to the short fat boy who'd always needed rescuing,
who had struggled with the Animagus Charm to find that the only transformation
he could manage was boy-to-rat. Wormtail, they called him. It was funny to them,
so funny that Peter even shared in the joke. Good old Peter.
“Please. I'm going to be in so
much trouble from--”
Peter faltered, his eyes darting from face to face. Sirius
smirked, but James still seemed sympathetic. As usual, he couldn't read the look
on Remus’s face. Why was it so stuffy
in the pub all of a sudden? Remember to
breathe, you idiot. He sucked in a lungful of air.
“--from Father. I did, er, borrow the key without asking
and when he finds out. But, I don't care, you see, because…because you've all
stuck by me in some pretty bad spots. Remember at school when that passageway
collapsed up on the fourth floor and you stayed to dig me out, even though
Pringle was on his way? I thought I was dead for sure.” Peter chortled feebly and
then hurriedly continued, “…and there's so little that I could do in return.
I'm not strong or clever or brave like you are. I know that. So, I thought that
I could at least try to do this for James, because of all we've been…because we
have to stick together, you know, and I-- This is all that I have to give
and….since I'm going to be punished anyway, why don't we at least have a bit of
fun first, eh?”
Silence haunted the table like an unhappy ghost. The pub
had begun to empty out and that left less and less noise to fill in the empty
spaces between the four of them.
The scrape of the chair on the floor was palpable as Remus
sat down. “You've all stuck by me in some
pretty bad spots.” The words set off a chain-reaction, trapping him in a
web of remembrance, bringing back sights and sounds that weren’t all fond
memories.
“I'll go first,
then,” James pronounces solemnly as he looks at the other boys seated in a
circle on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack.
“It bloody well
better be me,” Sirius laughs and raises his wand. “If this charm doesn't work,
then someone's going to be hauled up before Dumbledore...”
Pain. The
all-too-familiar pain of transformation squeezes his bones and stabs his
muscles. He gasps for breath. He claws at the floorboards like a half-drowned
sailor who's finally found the shore. The room swims before him. He sees the
horns of a stag and tries to focus on the large dark eyes. Can this be real?
It's the wet tongue of a big black dog licking his cheek that convinces him
he's not dreaming...
Dimmest of all was the memory that he'd tried to forget a
thousand times. Trying only made him relive it again, and again.
He stands at the
end of the tunnel and looks back through a haze of pain, most of the human torn
away from him already. Enough remains to see that Severus Snape stands at the
other end, mouth open, yelling words that no longer make sense. He tenses,
ready to spring, but before he can close the gap between them, the boy
disappears. He runs down the tunnel on four legs and--there it dissolves, not
enough of the human left to hold onto the thread...
Remus found himself staring at the pub's front door, the
one that led out into the dark and dirty streets of Muggle London where a bloke
could be anyone or no one, where being faceless and lost was as effortless as
water flowing down hill. He turned back to the earnest and troubled look on
James’s face, and could feel his friend's mind tugging at the tangled knot of
their predicament, trying to work out what would be “best for us all”.
In the end, Remus and James spoke up at the same time.
“Well, I don't suppose--”
“Peter, you shouldn't--”
They both laughed and James nodded to Remus who began
again, “I don't suppose that any of us is going to get a decent amount of
sleep, so we might as well carry on and see this club of Peter's.”
Sirius gave a low whistle and pocketed the key. He stood
and hauled James along with him.
“This may be our only chance,” he said over James’s
stiff-necked groans, “to see how those rich sods party. Yeah, and like Peter said,
his old dad would be delighted to give you a smashing send-off.”
“Mind you watch yourself.” Peter sprang up and scurried
around the table to James’s side, buzzing like a bee in a field of wildflowers.
“Don't want you getting hurt before we get there. Heh-heh. This'll be just the
thing; you'll see.”
Remus rose more slowly, contemplating Wormtail's mercurial
nature as he watched James and Peter thread their way through the tables on the
way to the Leaky Cauldron’s back
door. He mused out loud, “Do you think
Peter's telling us the whole story about that key? His father can be a bit of
an ogre, but I wonder…”
“You coming, then?” Sirius, now standing too, leaned
heavily on the table as he scrutinized his friend. This time there was concern
rather than scorn written on his face.
“Sure. Wouldn't miss it,” Remus replied. He avoided
Sirius’s stare by reaching down to retrieve his well-traveled jacket, which was
artistically spattered with Cornish mud. What's
gotten into me? he wondered, letting his eyes wander across the thinning
crowd in the public room.
The Leaky Cauldron
specialized in dark corners where conversations could be held between people
who didn't want to be seen or heard. Often, the air itself shimmered, a sure
sign that an Obfuscatus Charm had been cast by those who really wanted privacy.
Evan at this late hour, a smoky haze still lingered, doing a good imitation of
a confusion spell. A pair of hags puffed away on long pipes that usually
contained a sticky black pitch approximately equivalent to road tar. At the
fireplace, an elderly wizard was having a smoke ring-blowing contest with a
large party of dwarves. They'd been at it for a while, judging by the clouds of
multicolored smoke hanging over them.
How foolish he had been--lulled into believing in fairness
and justice by the years he'd spent at Hogwarts--to think that anyone in the
wizarding world would want to hire him. Werewolf.
Abomination. Creature of Darkness. He'd had all those epithets (and worse)
hurled at him during his fruitless search for a job. He was beginning to lose
hope, despite encouragement from his friends as well as from Dumbledore. Since
there seemed little happening on the job front, he'd hit upon the idea of a
spring walking tour of Cornwall. He had the time (plenty of it) and had always
wanted to see more of that country. Sirius had been right about the lure of
ruined castles and caves that often sheltered unusual Dark creatures or that
still held traces of the old, Dark spells. Perhaps his fascination with the
Dark Arts boded ill. He worried about that sometimes, too, being officially
classified as a creature of Darkness himself.
His friends worried about him, too. James and Peter
wouldn’t say anything to his face, but Sirius was another matter. They’d nearly
had a row about this very subject two weeks ago, right before Remus had left
for his ill-fated walking tour of Cornwall.
-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-
“You look like shit, Moony,” Sirius pronounced at the sight
of Remus, who had just appeared in the doorway that separated the tiny kitchen
from the rest of the flat.
“Thanks very much. I’m always a bit knackered on the day
after, you know that. And, you don’t look so well yourself,” Remus said dryly.
Sirius was barelegged and wore a wrinkled, inside-out tee shirt. In his
unshaven and pale-faced condition he might have been a recovering werewolf,
too. “How late were you out last night? I let myself in around midnight and
then fell right to sleep. I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“Don’t remember,” Sirius yawned and went back to fiddling
with a Muggle machine on the kitchen’s single, crowded countertop, which was
piled haphazardly with empty food cartons, beer bottles, and other flotsam and
jetsam.
Dishes clattered as Sirius hunted through the jumble of
cups and plates in the sink. He held up a glass to the light of the single
small window. As it seemed to be clean enough, he filled it from the tap, and
then poured the water into the top of the machine. This seemed to take all his
concentration. There was a sharp click as he pushed a button on the machine,
and then the thing began to hiss and rattle while steam came out the top.
“Too much to drink,” he chuckled with a shrug, “and then
there was Sasha. She lives downstairs. Fantastic. Brilliant move on my part to
take a flat in a building full of secretaries and shop clerks.” He looked
directly at Remus, grinning. “Nice girls, and they’re all Muggles so they don’t
have a clue, not the faintest idea, you know. I could--“
“No, thanks.” Remus shook his head and stared at the Muggle
machine where brown liquid was now dripping into a clear glass pot. “Anyway,
I’m leaving this afternoon after I get a few things in town.”
“Leaving? But, you just got here, Moony,” Sirius groaned.
“Is this something that I’m supposed to know about?”
“I’m off to Cornwall, right? I sent you an owl about it
before the full moon.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I remember,” he mumbled and ran
a hand through his short black hair, still rumpled from sleep like the rest of
him. “Sorry. Been so busy at work and with all the wedding rubbish…”
Neither spoke for a few minutes while the machine burbled
and sputtered. Sirius turned his attention to the mess in the sink and made an
attempt to sort it out. Remus, his arms folded, leaned against the doorway and
watched his friend make precarious piles of dishes.
When the sputterings and rattlings finally ceased, Sirius
inspected the pot of brown liquid by taking it from the machine and holding it
up to the light.
“Coffee?” he asked as he poured a cup for himself “It’s
really quite good. Nice little machine that runs on electricity. It’s new since
the last time you were here.”
“Tea will do for me,” Remus answered. His stomach lurched
suddenly and unpleasantly as the smell of coffee filled the kitchen.
“Hmph. The flat comes with electricity, you know, so I like
to try these things out.”
Remus recovered from the nausea that hovered over him like
vultures circling a fresh kill, and laughed weakly, “Irresistible, I know. Do
you have another machine that makes tea?”
“Ha!” exclaimed Sirius triumphantly as he pushed aside a
stack of plates and threw several paper food cartons on the floor in order to
make space on the counter for a mustard-yellow electric kettle. Soon it was
steaming, although not as fast as if it had been enchanted.
Remus watched him fill the kettle and listened to him
babble on about heating coils, voltages and such arcana, amazed once again by
his friend’s fascination with the minutia of Muggle life. Electricity was fairly astonishing, especially since
Muggles had come up with it on their own, but all these machines were slow and
cumbersome compared to the proper spells. Like most wizards, Remus had grown up
largely ignorant of how Muggles got along day to day. Although his father had
been a Muggle, his parents stayed within the wizarding community after he was
bitten as a small boy. If his father ever missed any of the trappings of his
former life, he never mentioned it.
“Here you go. No milk, I’m afraid,” Sirius said, after the
water had been boiled and the tea steeped. He handed Remus a steaming mug and
then gestured at a waist-high metal box tucked under the counter. “Might be a
bit in the fridge actually, but--very scary in there. Let’s see about
breakfast. Er, what have I got? Cornflakes, bread… Oh, I shall be very brave
and look in the--” He leaned down and opened the door to the metal box. “There
is a bit of milk, but it’s gone off. Aha! Here’s some bacon that doesn’t appear
to be green.”
“I’m getting tired of this re-fridge-rator,” Sirius
continued as he retrieved a paper-wrapped parcel and then stood up. “It keeps
things cold, but they get rather moldy in a hurry. A simple Preserving Charm
works much better. Want some bacon?”
“Yes, please,” Remus answered. He was ravenous after not
being able to keep anything down on the previous day, the day after the full
moon. It had taken most of his energy just to Apparate from his mother’s house
in Oxfordshire, and a single night’s sleep hadn’t improved things much.
“Right, then.” Sirius went to work throwing bacon into a
pan on the gas ring. Once he’d finished that task, he ducked into the little
bathroom, which was stuck off the kitchen as an afterthought, and came back
with his wand.
“No machine for cooking bacon?” Remus coughed to suppress a
laugh when Sirius waved his wand to light a flame under the pan. Another
incantation caused a fork to leap from the sink, float over to the pan and
begin poking at the bacon.
Sirius ignored the question and said, “This trip to
Cornwall, about a job, is it?”
“Bit of a holiday actually. I--uh--have some applications
out, but I’m not likely to hear on anything for a while, so I thought I’d do a
little sightseeing before the wedding. Lots of magical creatures, of course,
and cursed castles and--“
“I get the idea,” Sirius said. He raised one eyebrow and
gave Remus a penetrating stare, as the enchanted fork manically danced over the
sizzling pan. “Bloody irresistible for you, hunting up Dark creatures.”
“Studying is more like it,” Remus said carefully, looking
into his tea for a moment. “Outwitting demons or nasty fairies is quite tricky.
There’s a lot of legend and misinformation and--”
“--and you could write a book about it.” Sirius finished
with a forced laugh.
Remus nodded and sipped his tea. They’d been over this
ground before and he didn’t want to revisit what was becoming a sore spot
between them. He was spared from further discussion when Sirius decided that
the bacon was ready.
Aside from the tiny kitchen and the even tinier bath, there
was only one room in the flat and it served as dining room, bedroom, and
parlor. This was obviously a place that no cleaning lady had ever dared to
enter since most of Sirius’s possessions were jumbled about in plain view.
Sirius cleared off a small table with a sweep of his arm, sending books,
parchment and an empty beer bottle to the floor. They sat down without further
conversation and fell to eating.
“Watch yourself, okay?” Sirius said with uncharacteristic
worry after they’d polished off the bacon. “There’s a lot of nasty shit out
there right now--not all of it demons and fairies. Voldemort’s little army is
getting bolder every day and you’d be--” He gave an exasperated grunt. “I just
wish you’d be more careful. You put yourself into places where…”
Sirius paused, his face troubled. He took a sip of coffee and
looked intently into his cup.
“Where what?” Remus asked guardedly. “Where I’m sure to
bump into Voldemort? Is that what you mean? After what happened to my father,
how can--“
He shoved his plate into the teacup with a sharp clink. In
the silence that followed he spread his hands flat on the table, palms down,
and stared at them while he tried to calm himself. Those were fingers, human fingers, before him--not claws or
paws or scales, or any of the other more fanciful things rumored about Lord
Voldemort and his followers. Once again, he wondered if Sirius--and James, too,
though James refused to bring it up--worried more about his safety or about his
prospects for being recruited.
Sirius banged his own cup on the table and cleared his
throat.
“Look, I’m not accusing you of anything,” he said in a
gentler tone than before. “I just meant to say, that is--that no witch or
wizard is entirely safe any more.”
“Business must be good, then,” Remus commented, suddenly
interested in his cold tea.
“Booming. Couldn’t be better,” Sirius said with a shrug,
less eager than Remus to change the subject. After an unsuccessful attempt to
become an Auror, he’d landed a job with the Cerebus Protection Agency, a
private firm that specialized in security for wizards. “We can barely keep up
with the demand for Security Charms, enchanted alarms, and bodyguards. Today
I’ve got to go to Cheltenham to--” He halted and looked at his watch. “Bloody
hell! Is that the time? ‘Scuse me for a minute while I wash up.”
Sirius got up from the table and strode across the room to
a large battered wardrobe. He rummaged through clothing, leaving an untidy heap
on the floor, and came away with an armful that he carried to the flat’s tiny
bathroom. Several minutes later he emerged, clean-shaven with his hair slicked
down and wearing a somber, dark suit.
“You’d trust me to guard your wife and daughter at the
races, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
“Mmmm. Depends on how old the daughter is,” Remus said.
“Good point,” Sirius smirked. He picked up his cup and downed
the last of the coffee, but didn’t sit. A restless energy had seized him. “I’ll
bet you could get a job at the agency. They’re always looking for good people
and your wards are the best. I can personally vouch for your Fence Spell being
able to stop a Quidditch player at top speed.” He paced the little room,
kicking aside discarded clothing as he went. “Yeah. This is a great idea. Why
didn’t I think of it before? I’ll talk to the head of the firm and--“
“Please don’t,” Remus
interjected firmly. “I’m sure they’d want--“
“Five sodding recommendations, yeah. And I sweated like a
goblin roasting on a spit about getting those recs,” Sirius interrupted in
turn, “but you won’t have any trouble. All the teachers liked you at school.”
“You’re forgetting that I’m registered, Sirius,” Remus said
slowly, dragging out each word. “Once I came of age, my records became public.
Anyone who cares to enquire at the Ministry can find out what I am. And they
would, of course. Can you honestly see a security firm employing a werewolf,
especially with things as they stand now? “
“Hmph. P’raps you’re right. But, something will turn up for
you,” Sirius said with a brief smile that fooled neither of them. “Anyway, it’s
mostly bloody boring work and I won’t be there too much longer. I’m angling for
something bigger.”
“Really? You mean they might take you as an Auror?”
“Damn right. Moody--he’s probably the most famous of the
lot--well, I’ve been working with him on security for the wedding, y’know. And
some of the things he’s done make me look like--let’s just say that if they let
him become an Auror, I don’t see how they can complain about my record. I’ve
learned a lot from him, even though he’s a right pain in the arse to work with.
If Moody recommends me, they’ll take me this time.”
Sirius shifted mental gears and said, “Where in hell are my
boots?” After rooting around the room, sending clothes and blankets flying, he
pulled out his wand, crying, “Accio
boots!” A pair of new-looking black boots emerged from a pile of clothing like
dolphins leaping above the surface of the sea. He deftly caught them, and then
sat heavily on the sofa to pull the boots on.
“You’re not Apparating all the way to Cornwall today, are
you?” he said sharply, looking up at Remus with more concern than censure.
Remus shook his head. “I’ll take the train to Truro and go
on from there.”
“Good, because you still look like shit,” Sirius said
lightly. “Need money? I could lend you a bit, just in case you need… train fare
to get back.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’ve enough for the return trip,
if it makes you feel better.”
“Great. You know that there’s this rehearsal dinner-thingy
on the twentieth. James--or maybe it’s Lily--wants us all there.” Sirius paused
while he tugged at a robe that was pinned underneath him on the sofa, then went
on, “And after that, we’ll go out, just the four of us. James deserves a bit of
fun, especially after having to deal with all of Lily’s relatives.”
Remus, who had been dragged along on pub-crawls before,
merely rolled his eyes. Did James know what he was in for?
“You’re not getting out of this,” Sirius warned with a
wicked grin. He stood and put on the robe, then pointed his wand menacingly at
Remus. “I don’t care if a dragon attacks you; you’d better turn up.”
“Oh, I promise,” Remus smiled back at him. “Don’t worry
about me, though. I’m sure I’ll be much safer on holiday than you are at work.”
Sirius laughed as he raised his wand, and then held it
motionless, poised to begin the spell. A more sober expression marched across
his face and he said firmly, “Any funny stuff and I want to hear about it, all
right? You could be in a lot of danger, y’know, and if you don’t--Oh, hell,
Moony, don’t look at me like I’m a complete idiot!” With a final and disgusted
shake of his head, he raised the wand and swiftly brought it down to complete
the Apparition spell.
“Take care of yourself, okay?” And he was gone.
“Right,” Remus replied quietly to the empty flat.
-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-
“Yeah. Wait'll they get a load of us at this sodding
whorehouse, eh, Moony?” Sirius chuckled and then drained the remaining beer
from the glasses on the table.
“What?” Remus tried to collect his thoughts as he folded
his jacket over one arm. “Oh, they'd never suspect that we're a traveling road
show of bestiality.”
Sirius laughed heartily and wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand, having consumed the last of the beer.
“You sure you're going to make it?” Remus tried to gauge
his friend's level of intoxication.
“Don't give me that crap.” Sirius threw an arm over Remus’s
shoulder and pulled him away from the dregs. “I can drink all of you under the
table. Any time. Day or night. Awake or in my bloody sleep.”
“But, even you--” Remus began as they lurched through the
obstacle course of tables and chairs that lay between them and the pub's back
door. He checked himself because he didn’t want to start another argument.
“Hey, watch it!” yelled an angry witch, a puddle of
Gillywater in her lap after Sirius crashed into her table. He took no notice,
although Remus mumbled a hasty apology.
“Fantastic,” Sirius chortled thickly as he dragged his
friend like a weedy log caught in a trawler's net. “This'll fix James right up.
Be as good as new, he will. And Peter… Ha! Might be old Peter's only shot at
getting laid.”
“Mmmm” was Remus’s only comment as he concentrated on
navigating. He hoped that Sirius wouldn't feel like holding forth on his prospects. In fact, he was beginning
to hope that the key to this mysterious brothel would turn out to be a
practical joke. Only, Peter didn't have the imagination to dream up anything
like this.
“Ah, Mr. Prongs and Mr. Wormtail,” cried Sirius gleefully
as they rejoined the others at the door. “Mr. Moony and Mr. Padfoot beg to join
you.”
He let go of Remus and staggered into James who pushed him
away while protectively clutching his neck. Sirius ignored a very dirty look
thrown in his direction and grinned.
“Onward, lads.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~