The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Filled Up With Werewolves

Lily sighed and slid down the wall so she was sitting on the carpet and James sat beside her. "I really hate that Remus has to suffer like that," she murmured, looking at her fingers, "Being a werewolf, I mean."

"Me, too," James agreed.

They sat in a grim silence for several long moments, Lily picking quietly at a loose nail on her thumb and James resting his chin on his knee, lost in thought. Suddenly, they both started to speak at exactly the same time. 

"What?" Lily asked James, stopping mid-sentence.

"No, you," James replied - ever the gentleman.

"Well I was just going to say that perhaps this has something to do with the research Mr. Scamander was doing to see why the full moon's effects have been extra terrible for Mr. Veigler and Remus lately," Lily suggested, "Perhaps he's found some sort of cure for them. Wouldn't that be lovely? If Mr. Scamander found a cure for werewolfishness? And just imagine if he did! Remus wouldn't have to spend the night in that drafty old shack any longer, and he could be a perfectly normal boy again, and live a perfectly normal life. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

James nodded enthusiastically.

Lily sighed to herself, pleased with the thought of Remus Lupin being a perfectly normal human and no longer plagued by his furry little problem. She smiled sweetly, then cleared her throat, pushing the thought from her mind, realizing it was honestly the least likley of all the possibilities. She looked at James. "What were you about to say, then?"

James hesitated.

"Potter?"

"I was just going to ask if you wanted to get on with snogging yet is all," he admitted, a devilish grin crawling across his full lips, and a gleam in his eye.

Lily nodded in a businesslike manner, "Yes, I suppose we ought," she said, and she turned so that she was kneeling beside him, bending forward, her hair hanging like a bright red curtain to block the joining of their faces.

Far below, many many floors down, in the dungeons, Frek stood, shaking in the passageway that cut through the rows of cells. Barred doors locked, torches burning low, there was no moonlight visible here, no windows to allow it entry. Frek stared between the bars of the cell nearest him, his eyes lingering on the black bulk of sleeping fur in the corner of the room. "G'nite Messer Garm," he murmured, turning and inching away. He held his torch in his meaty fists, one eye on the wolf in the cell for a leery moment before he blew out the fire, and scrambled back to the stairs that led up and out of the dungeons.

Upstairs, in Dumbledore's office, there was a tenseness - a worried anticipation. Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall,  Elphinstone Urquart all sat about Dumbledore's office, drinking steaming hot tea from magenta china cups, trimmed with gold leaf stars. Queenie Kowalski stood by the fire place, staring lovingly up at the beautiful golden plumes of the Phoenix, Fawkes, who she stroked gently with a forefinger. Fawkes lovingly coddled her hand and she smiled when he gently nibbled on the edge of her fingernail, something he'd done as a tiny hatchling many times during her time at Numengard so many years ago...

There came a knock upon the door and they all turned, anxious. Dumbledore waved a palm, opening it magically from across the room. Newt Scamander entered, followed by Tina Scamander, and Horace Slughorn. McGonagall's hand gripped Urquart's nervously, and Queenie turned from Fawkes to face the newcomers. Horace Slughorn, who was clad in his pyjamas and fluffy, rabbit-shaped slippers, was panting from climbing the great many stairs to the office, and took pause, shaking a handkerchief from his wand, which he used to wipe his brow.