Chapter 11: Ragamuffins and an Unwelcome Discovery
The thing that always annoyed James to no end was how everyone seemed to forget about Voldemort. They seemed to always manage it, though he was at their doorstep, breathing down their necks so to speak. Just because they were in the one safe place there was, it didn't mean that they could ignore the world around them, did it?
He massaged his temples as he put down the latest edition of the Evening Prophet. He'd faced Voldemort once before, but that was in the beginning, before he was infamous, before everyone knew his name--though how they knew it when nobody said it, James was never sure.
He couldn't help glancing at the paper once more. Seventeen people dead, including fifteen muggles and two aurors. The dead aurors' pictures were looking up from the page, grave and daring anybody to deny the seriousness of their jobs. And James wondered once more, though he was almost certain it had to do with cowardice, why he did not want to be an auror and have a serious job trying to save people from the things they seemed to forget, or were not aware of at all.
***
"You know," Lily said to James one day, "I notice that during prefect meetings, you and Severus don't actually pay much attention to each other."
They were the only ones in the room, cleaning up after said meeting. It was particularly messy; it was less than a week until Halloween and somebody had had the idea to pass out sweets. Somehow or other, supposedly responsible teenagers had managed to make a bigger mess than James would have expected from a group of five year olds. And, as could only be expected, the instant that cleanup had been mentioned, James and Lily had been the only ones left standing there.
James shrugged at what Lily said.
"Not like I care about him that much." It was true. While the other prefects, even Remus, had gotten so lighthearted as to engage into a candy-throwing match, Snape had continued to skulk in the corner. James found his behavior altogether depressing, and couldn't even be bothered to come up with a proper insult for him.
"I like that, though. It makes me think you two could manage to be civil to one another."
James laughed and chose not to reply. Lily crossed her arms.
"Oh, come off it, you could! You know you could."
"But that doesn't mean I want to. We're not all like you."
"Who's `we'?"
"People who hate Snape. Which is pretty much everyone."
Lily took this surprisingly lightly, and James barely managed to hide a grin. Somehow things had changed between them when they'd come to their agreement, and more and more often he was finding the awkwardness around her disappearing, replaced with a witty banter that shocked him with how similar it could be to his conversations with Sirius. When James had bared the truth to Sirius, palms sweating and nervous to the point of irrationality, Sirius had absolutely stunned him by smiling distractedly.
"That's nice," he had said calmly. "Hey Wormtail, d'you mind going down to Hogsmeade and getting some more sugar quills? I'm dying in Binns's class without them…"
Lily, too, had been a bit suspicious at that, but she'd still taken it lightly.
"Why challenge a good thing?" she'd asked.
The thing of it was, James didn't think it was a good thing; Sirius wasn't like that. He did not like being lied to, no matter how many times he himself lied, and James had denied, time and time again, any connection with Lily whatsoever. This left one of two options; either this went exactly according to his original plan (which he doubted) or he was completely distracted by something else and would find the time to deal with this revelation later. Neither one of these options particularly appealed to him.
"James? James!"
Lily was staring at him, as though waiting for an answer.
"Huh? What?"
"I asked you if you'd help me get that." She pointed at a spot on the ceiling a few feet above them, and he saw that a sweet had managed to get stuck up there. He gave her a funny look.
"Is this a test?"
"What?"
"Because you can stop doing those."
"James, I'm not--"
"In fact, I'm sort of offended that you--"
"Listen to me!" she half laughed, half shouted. "I can't get it, I've forgotten my wand. I promise," she added, seeing the look of deep suspicion on his face.
"Fine," he grunted, and with a wave of his wand, the sweet came floating gently down into his hand. Handing it to her he said, grudgingly,
"I suppose that would explain why you're doing it all by hand."
"And I suppose that means that you were doing it because I was? How sweet!"
"Er--no." James rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Then why weren't you--"
"I can't do charms. Well, I passed Charms, but I--that is to say--" He began fidgeting with his wand.
"So…you're saying that you've never been taught how to do a proper cleaning spell, so you manage to find clever ways to make other people do it for you."
He gave her a reproachful look.
"It's not--look, it's not as manipulative as you're making it out to be."
"I didn't think it was, I was exaggerating to give you a bit of shame." Lily patted his shoulder familiarly; James flinched a little, and Lily pretended not to notice.
"Honestly, though," she said, taking his wand from his hand and flicking it at the mess, "you ought to consider getting somebody to teach it to you. I'm sure Flitwick would be happy to."
"Erm--probably not," he said, watching the wrappers and sweets littering the floor, as well as the bag they had been putting all of it in, disappear. The last day of Charms in their fifth year, Sirius had set Professor Flitwick's eyebrows on fire and he himself had managed to cause him to go flying out the window, causing him to call the pair of them "a set of ruffians" and "outrageous ragamuffins", among other things. James highly doubted that he ever wanted to see either of their faces ever again.
Explaining this to Lily, she began laughing.
"Did he really use those words?" she asked once her giggles subsided. When he assured her that he had, she shook her head.
"Goodness, I can't imagine that." She sighed happily. "That's wonderful, though, in a horrible way." Handing James his wand back, she said, as though having made an important decision, "I suppose I'll teach you then."
"It's not important, really, I don't--"
"Of course you need it. Unless you intend to live like a muggle?"
"I'll always have a House-elf."
Lily looked disgruntled.
"That's cheating."
"Some people could say that about magic."
"…that's true."
James smiled smugly, and then got a glimpse of the sky out of the window. The smug expression slid right off his face when he saw it. There, clear and bright, hung the full moon.
"Shit," he whispered to himself. He understood why Remus hadn't mentioned it; he wouldn't want to chance Snape overhearing, and he would be having a hard enough time trying to resist the moon's pull as long as possible. But why hadn't Sirius come to tell him? He wasn't honestly planning on handling Moony on his own, was he? True, Wormtail would be there, but how much help would that be?
"What is it?" For the second time, Lily interrupted his thoughts, a crease appearing between her eyebrows and not bothering to scold him for his language. James shook his head hard.
"I have to go," he mumbled. "I forgot something, something important…"
"I'm guessing that asking to go with you would be stupid." Lily smiled ruefully at him, and he nodded.
"Yeah…" The more he thought about it, the more disturbed he became. He'd never missed a transformation that took place at school, and Sirius and Peter knew that. He set off at a sprint at towards the giant double doors in the front, not pausing to speak to Nearly Headless Nick, who seemed to be trying to start a mournful conversation about his impending deathday. Bursting out the doors, he remembered, fleetingly, that he had neither the invisibility cloak or map, making it impossible for him to transform right away. He cursed under his breath, but decided, as quickly as the thought had come to him, to transform in the tunnel under the tree. Reaching the Whomping Willow, he slumped over, supporting himself with his hands on his knees. He could barely breathe, his lungs felt so close to exploding. After a moment, he stood up, then cursed again.
"How the…how the hell am I supposed to get in?" he panted. There was no Wormtail to press the knot for him, and he could see no long sticks lying around. Normally, he would consider waiting until they came out for their romp around the grounds, but something told James that he could not afford to wait, that things were not as normal as they appeared. Closing his eyes tight, James made a wild, desperate leap, and at once he was caught up by the branches.
"Oh fuck, oh God."
He whispered this at a rapid pace to himself as he was swung back and forth, clinging for dear life. Though he was a Quidditch player and loved to fly, this was something completely different. They boughs of the relatively young tree were strong, and they whipped his face and body mercilessly. His glasses were knocked to the ground, and he was left swinging around as vague black blurs surrounded him on all sides. Finally, he did the only thing there was left to do; he jumped.
When he landed, he hit the base of the tree hard. It appeared that he had managed to inadvertently hit the knot in his fall, and he was left to pick up and replace his cracked glasses on his nose.
"What the hell am I doing?" he hissed. But something in his gut told him that no matter what, even if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, he had to know now, because if something did…well, he'd never be able to forgive himself. Dragging himself up, blood and a spider web-shaped crack in his glasses obstructing his vision, he went down into the gap in the roots and followed the tunnel.
"Lumos," he hissed, and the tip of his wand lit up.
There was an eerie quiet, and James realized, surprised, that Wormtail and Padfoot weren't there yet. He frowned; there was definitely something wrong. They were always there by now…He decided, until he spotted some sign that they were there, not to transform. He emerged out of the tunnel to the house and shined his wand around. Examining the thin layer of dust that had blanketed the floor in it's month of disuse, he realized that there were footprints. Human footprints.
One of them was Remus's stumbling and weak. The other one he didn't recognize, but he knew it wasn't supposed to be there. He ran after the footprints, and he found himself coming before the door that he knew Remus was in, whining and scratching, wondering why his friends hadn't come, furious about it. And standing there, his hand resting on the knob, was none other than Severus Snape. James had to put a hand on the wall from stumbling back in shock and horror.
When Snape heard footsteps behind him, he turned around, and seeing James, he grinned.
"I knew it," Snape croaked. "I always thought…and he is. Lupin…he's a werewolf, a filthy werewolf, at this school!"
"Snape," James said, "You don't know what you're talking about." He found himself acting unreasonably calm. Though a small part of him wanted Snape to open the door, to see exactly what Remus had become, another part, the responsible and, ultimately, the bigger part, knew that he could not allow this to happen. If not for Snape, then for Remus.
"It seems that I do; more than you, at any rate," he sneered, taking in James's bloody, disheveled appearance. "Black, the idiot, he told me everything I needed to know. Finally, you fools will get what you deserve. I should think that expulsion would be the very lightest of punishments."
James's blood went cold at the mention of Sirius. However, he tried not to show this to Snape.
"Snape, you don't--"
"Silence, Potter!" Snape shrieked. He pointed his wand at James's head. James froze, and Snape's smile widened, half-crazed.
"And now," he said, licking his lips, "the time has come for me to see it for myself." Like a flash, Snape turned the knob and opened the door.
At once, Moony was upon him, mad and eager for blood. He was on Snape's chest, Snape's eyes so wide that the whites were threatening to swallow the inky black irises. Just before Moony could sink his teeth into Snape's throat, Prongs had leapt at him, pinning him down with his hoofed feet. Moony growled at this show of disrespect and theft from one he considered a friend, and tried to bite Prongs's leg off. Prongs dodged, then kicked Moony hard, so hard that he ricocheted off the door frame and back into the room that he'd come from. James changed back, then hastily slammed the door shut, trying hard to ignore the heart wrenching whimpering sound that Moony was now making. He turned and found, to his immense relief, that Snape had already fainted and presumably hadn't seen him change into Prongs or back.
James levitated Snape back to the tunnel and out of the Whomping Willow, which was still frozen, and toward the castle. As he passed the greenhouses, two shadows darted about, then appeared next to him as they recognized who he was. He didn't stop, and a moment later he knew they had transformed, because Sirius's voice came floating toward him.
"Oi! Potter, wait up!"
Sirius and Peter appeared on either side of him, both of them looking into his face expectantly.
"James…James, come off it, you aren't upset, are you? He's a prat! He doesn't deserve any less than that, always snooping around as he does…" Sirius, as he watched James's expression, seemed to become less and less certain of his own words.
"James…at least…look at me, for God's sakes, look at me!" He sounded on the verge of tears, desperate to be comforted, to know that he and James were still on the same side.
But James could not look at him. Though he was furious and hurting in places that he didn't know could hurt, he felt more sad than anything else. Sad at what Remus would have to wake up to, sad at what Dumbledore would be forced to say, sad that Sirius didn't even know what he'd done that was so wrong.
And when he figured out that what made him saddest was that Lily would be sad, he didn't know how he could bring himself to forgive him.
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