The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Pity

"You can't feed her bacon!" Lily's voice was stern, "Give her here." She held out her arms and took Patti the Pig from Sirius, who stared apprehensively across the table as Lily wrapped Patti into her cardigan. "You want some eggs?" she asked in a gentle tone, "Want some eggs?"

The pig snorted and wiggled, and Lily took a couple bits of egg into her palm and offered it up to the pig, who quickly ate the food off her hand, leaving great trails of pig spittle and drippings from her nose all over Lily's skin.

James made a face at the piglet something akin to a grimmice. 

They had snuck back in through the entrance hall doors at the first light of dawn and gone directly into the Great Hall for breakfast. They were the first ones at the Gryffindor table, and very few had trickled in since they'd sat down. Those that had glanced at the pig in Lily's lap with confusion and unease.

"Thought we were only allowed cats, rats, and owls?" murmured a Ravenclaw in distaste from behind them.

"You want a pig? You bloody make it yourself," Sirius said, and waved them off, "Pay attention to your own lives, will you, instead of hovering over our shoulders looking at ours, ey?"

The Ravenclaw students turned away, offended.

Lily stroked the piglet's head softly and pressed a kiss to the end of it's snout as it snorted and oinked quietly, smiling down at it, and feeling very affectionate and motherly. James sat beside her, looking over her shoulder at the piglet, and Sirius and Remus watched from the otherside of the table. "Here, see if she likes potato," he said, offering up one of the slices of it from his platter.

"Or toast," suggested James.

"I reckon, being a pig, that it'll eat anything you give it," Remus said, the least impressed with the piglet of the four of them.

Ali landed on the seat beside Lily. "Is that --"

"Yes, it's a piglet," Sirius said, proudly. "It's mine. Her name's Patti Smith."

"Of course it is," laughed Alice.

Frank guffawed as he sat down, "And where the bloody hell did you get a pig from?"

"Made it," Sirius replied.

Frank's mouth clearly repeated the words made it silently before he said, "What?"

Sirius grinned. "I cast the porcus spell and -- wa-la."

"Wa-la," repeated Lily, tilting the little pig for Ali and Frank to see better.

"OH MY GOODNESS SHE'S DARLING!" Ali cried, and she quickly set to giving the little piglet kisses as well and helping Lily to feed it while Frank stared on uneasily.

From the doorway of the Great Hall, Minerva McGonagall watched her students fawning over the little pig, watched the grin on Sirius's face glowing proudly at it. She stood, frozen on the spot for sometime, her hand upon her chin, jaw trembling slightly. She felt a touch on her shoulder and she turned to find Albus Dumbledore standing beside her. He looked at her with apologetic eyes. "I can speak to him, if you would prefer, Minerva," Dumbledore said.

McGonagall shook her head. "No, Professor," she replied, shaking her head, "I just wanted to give him a moment more in which to be happy."

Dumbledore nodded, understanding, and said, "Do let me know if you need any help at all. I am most willing to assist in anyway that I can."

"Thank you, Professor," McGonagall answered, and Dumbledore walked on to the front of the room, where the staff tables were, and set himself down at his place to eat.