Maryrose Knows
Maryrose Jenkins had never gone into the Forbidden Forest before. She stood at the edge of it, where the grass turned to bracken and she looked back at the castle, at the lights that glowed golden in the dark, and drew a deep breath... drew her wand... and stepped into the shadows of the trees. "Lumos," she whispered, and the wand glowed, lighting the way through the trunks and branches, and Maryrose moved carefully forward, listening... her heart in her throat.
Somewhere out here was James, Lily, and Remus. Somewhere, something was happening, and she was afraid of what - afraid that they needed her help and that perhaps she hadn't been able to come quickly enough...
There was a sound - a cracking through the trees... something heavy moving in the dark... and she lowered her wand, "Nox," she whispered, and she crouched down... Suddenly, from among the branches, she spotted it. It was a huge deer - a stag, with big antlers and long, wobbly legs, stepping carefully along. She shook as she stood back up, intending to go on by it, to find where the others had gone... but at her movement, the stag stopped walking, froze in place, turning his head to look at her. His tail flicked nervously...
And then he started walking toward her.
Maryrose's fingers gripped her wand tighter, her eyes widening as the beast came toward her. She stumbled backwards, away, certain it was trying to attack her, that it was going to - to hoof her to death or something. She'd never met a deer, she didn't know if they were vicious in the wild or not, if they were something she ought to be frightened of. But this one was coming - picking up speed as it came toward her - and she was quite put off by it and she hurried to back away, and the heel of her shoes caught a tree root, hooked her foot and sent her falling to the floor of the forest, crashing her tailbone against the ground with a horrible jolt of pain and her back slammed into the bracken - and still the deer came at her and she grabbed her wand and raised it, bringing her arms up over her face as protection and she aimed the wand -- "Stupe--" she started the spell but suddenly --
The deer fell forward - tripped, it seemed, but then - no, no not tripped, it... it was changing... and... and --
She screamed.
Maryrose's scream was the sort of scream that would have excited horror film producers in Hollywood. The sort that rang and sent shivers down the spine. It echoed through the trees, loud and clear as a bell until --
James Potter's hand clamped over her mouth. "Shhhh!" he hissed, stopping her shrieking with his palm. "Bloody hell, are you trying to wake the dead with that scream?"
She stared up at him, wild eyed, trying to struggle away, and he dropped his palm from her mouth and she crawled backwards quickly, staring at him, scrambling to her feet, raising her wand to aim it at him. "What the hell was that? What the bloody hell was that?!" she cried, panicked.
"Shhhh!" he hissed again. He looked over his shoulder, the way Lily and Remus were in, and then back to Maryrose.
This wouldn't do. This wasn't how Lily Evans needed to find out about the stag. The timing was wrong. Maryrose had ruined it by coming out. Or perhaps she'd saved him from making the mistake of telling Lily. Whichever. But whatever it was, Lily didn't need to be finding them. "Quick," he whispered, come with me -- this way. I'll explain in a second. But hurry. This way." He grabbed her hand, and quickly pulled her along, leading her through the trees.
Maryrose could barely breathe. As James tugged her through the branches, holding them back so she could pass unhindered, and pointing out roots so she didn't trip, she stared at the back of his head, a the messy black hair and his broad shoulders and couldn't help but see the mental image of them bursting from the shape of a deer over and over and over in his head.
Seeing things, going crazy, you've gone mad, she told herself, People don't just turn into animals and back again... but even as she thought it, she thought of McGonagall leaping from her desk, transfiguring from a cat to a person in midair and her mind spun wildly...
When he'd pulled her far enough away that James thought Remus and Lily might not catch up to them, he stopped and turned to face Maryrose. She stared at him, her eyes grey and her hair changing colour uncontrollably with her nervousness. He was reminded of Nymphadora Tonks showing off at the breakfast table the month before, crying out look, look as she changed. James put a hand on Maryrose's shoulder. "I'm sorry I scared you."
She guffawed loudly, "Scared me? You can't possibly think scared is the right term for what I am right now?"
He blinked at her, confused.
"James, try terrified! Try confused as bloody hell! Try perplexed!" Her eyes searched his desperately, "I've just seen my boyfriend come exploding out of a deer --"
"A stag, rather," he murmured.
"-- and I don't understand and I'm really just hoping you've a really good explanation for what's happening here." Her voice lilted with a plea.
James took a deep breath, "Alright, listen. If I tell you... you must swear to me that you'll never... ever... tell anybody. Ever. For any reason."
Maryrose nodded, "James, I swear to you."
"Ever," he stressed.
"I'll never tell. Ever."
James looked frightened, too. He ran his palms up behind his head, locking them at the back in his hair, his face looking pale, almost sick with nerves. "Alright. Look. It's like this. Sirius... he got this idea... a while back.. .that it would be... cool... if we four... you know, had sort of a - a gang." He was making it up as he went along, not wanting to out Remus Lupin, crafting a way about that one part of the tale as best he could. "And so we thought that being animaguses would be really... neat..."
Maryrose bit her lips.
"We - we researched it and we did it," James said. "We're unregistered animaguses."
"You're... you're not joking."
"You saw the stag. That's my animagus."
Maryyrose didn't know what to say. She staggered back 'til her spine hit a tree and she slid down into a crouch, holding her head in shock. "You just... you just did it?" she said, "You just -- and you can --" she couldn't form sentences, her mind spinning.
"I mean, we read a book."
"Bloody hell." She closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry I scared you."
Maryrose looked up at him. "Do it. Do it now. I need to see."
"What? Change?"
"Yes. I need to see you do it."
James hesitated a moment, then he took a couple steps back and he took a deep breath... and... and Maryrose watched his legs and arms grow, narrowing into cloven hooves and his back reshaping, neck growing... His nose curved and turned leatherlike, his eyes sliding to the sides, antlers sprouting from his head... his tail flicking... and there he stood, the stag, as majestic as he'd been before... bathed in pure moonlight coming from the sky.
Maryrose gasped. He took a slow, wobbly step forward, and he lowered his neck toward her... Tentatively, Maryrose held out her hand and the stag pressed his nose into her palm and made a very gentle, low honking sound deep in his throat.
"Merlin's beard," she breathed. "It is you, isn't it?"
The stag nodded. It actually nodded! And Maryrose laughed at the absolute ridiculousness of it. Her lower lip trembled and she stood up slowly, the stag's eyes following as she stood up and slowly ran her palm over his snout and down his neck... He continued making the low honking sound. Her hand was on his back now, and she stood beside him, breathless.
"Change back," she commanded.
There was a pause... and then the stag shuddered, his skin rippling funny beneath her hand, and she drew her palm away as the creature fell forward onto his knees and then to the ground, the antlers melting away, the legs thickening and hooves breaking into hands and trainers and suddenly there was James Potter, in his slacks and his oxford shirt, his hair messy as always, his glasses a bit lopsided, on his hands and knees in the bracken.
He looked up at her as he pushed up from the ground and stood before her.
She stared up at him.
"You just couldn't handle it, could you?" she asked.
"What?" he looked confused.
"Dating an metamorphamagus," she replied, "Had to show me up one, didn't you?"
James's lips twitched.
"Turning into a ruddy deer!"
"Stag," James corrected her, "It's a stag."
"Whatever it is. Horns and the lot! Bloody hell!" She shook her head. "You're mad."
James laughed.
Maryrose laughed and bit her lip, still staring up at him, feeling as though it would be impossible to look away, half expecting him to change back righ there on the spot. "But why tonight? Why are you out here in the woods tonight, being your stag? You were supposed to be on the Astronomy tower with me. So why are you here, in the woods?"
James hesitated.
"Tell me the truth."
Her words were so firm that James found he couldn't resist. He looked at his trainers. "Honestly, it's a long story."
She looked about, and found a couple rocks and sat down, patting the rock beside her for him to sit upon. When he had, she said, "Start at the beginning, then."
James took a deep breath, "It all sort of starts with... with my very first time on the Hogwarts Express, really..." He couldn't stand to look at her, afraid of what he might see in her expression, so he cast his eyes downward as he spoke, "And I was searching for a compartment to sit in and I found a crying girl... all by herself..."
And Maryrose sat, listening patiently, as James Potter told her as near to everything as he possibly could.