The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Giraffe Smut

"His birthday is coming up..." Tina weedled.

"A g-giraffe for his - his birthday?" Newt laughed.

"And you're feeling a good deal better, it's really time we ought to go and fetch him back, I think we've fulfilled the doctors request and honestly, they're muggle creatures, it can't be that hard to tend one, could it? And you always say you want him to take on more responsibility for the creatures - but then you're so particular about how they're taken care of, it's hard for him to do it... Perhaps if he had his own creatures..."

"Why - why d-don't we - we give him a - a c-couple of the moon calves?" Newt suggested. "M-more of th-those than I know wh-what to do with most of the t-times!"

"Mr. Scamander, really, you above all people know how important certain creatures can become to a person!" Tina argued, shaking her head.

Newt sighed and ran his fingers over the top of Pox's head as the dragon ducked and rubbed his face against Newt's fingers.

Bradley was kneeling at the table in the flat in East London, eating toast, and using finger paints to paint a giraffe - it was blue with green spots. "It's a magical giraffe," he answered when Sirius asked why the color scheme.

"Well isn't he dandy," Sirius said, watching Bradley's fingers drag the paint across the paper.

Remus was painting, too, though his painting was not of a blue-and-green giraffe, but rather a still life. He'd set up a stack of books and a vase of flowers on the counter so the sun was hitting them through the window. He was staring at the books with squinted eyes as he created shadows on the canvas he was using, his tongue bit between his teeth, brush working, daubbing brownish-maroon paint along the seam of his painted books. 

From the living room, music was playing - Sirius was allowed to borrow records from the shop and the result was new music nearly every day, of all sorts, and today it was a record from a traditional Hawiian folk group so that the whole apartment rang with the open notes of the kî hô 'alu - a slack-key guitar. The song was called Hi'ilawe by a man named Gabby Pahinui. Sirius hummed along, even though he didn't know the lyrics - they were all in the native tongue. The gave the kitchen a light, airy feeling, though, and Remus rather liked the happy feeling of the plunky music compared to the usual hard edge of Sirius's records. It felt calming and relaxing and reminded him a bit of the time they'd spent in Costa Rica for their anniversary, making him smile.

"Did you know that 94% of giraffes are gay?" Bradley suddenly asked.

Sirius spit pumpkin juice in shock, choking loudly as Remus rounded on Bradley. "What?"

"It said in the book I got about giraffes that 94% of mounting observed by researchers was performed between two male giraffes and --"

"What the hell kind of book have you got?" Remus demanded.

Sirius, still coughing, wheezed out, "Yeah, who bought you giraffe smut?"

"What's smut?" Bradley asked.

"NOTHING," Remus said, cutting across whatever Sirius was about to say that had started well smut is -- before he'd stopped at Remus's sharp tone. Bradley looked between Remus and Sirius with wide, innocent eyes. 

"Lily bought me a book about giraffes that Mike the Giraffe Keeper suggested," Bradley explained. "It's from the zoo. It's a science book. It has loads of pictures and all the information about the classifications of the giraffe - giraffa camelopardalis." He beamed with delight. Then, "It was in there."