Stag Night

Stag Night

~ X ~

Impoundment

“No entrance?” James said in a startled voice, as if waking up from an unexpected nap, the kind often taken surreptitiously in History of Magic class and cruelly ended by a prickly question from Professor Binns.

“Do you see anything even vaguely resembling a door, window, grate, keyhole--“ Sirius raised his arms and gestured to the brick walls. He let his arms fall to his sides with a pointed slap. “No? I didn’t think so.”

“But I’m sure this is the place,” Peter said quickly with an imploring look to James. “I mean, there’s the tiger and…and--“

“And are you sure we didn’t take the wrong turn in the dark?” Sirius advanced on Peter, poking him in the chest for emphasis as he spoke so that Peter was backed up against the wall and crowded against the rear haunches of the crouching stone tiger. “We were in a fucking maze back there. We had to go chasing after you and then got separated. Who’s to say that there wasn’t another passage that we missed?”

“Leave him alone, will you? I don’t remember any other passage. Let me see that key.” James frowned and held out his hand.

Sirius turned away from the cowering Peter. With an exaggerated shrug, he thrust a hand into one of the pockets of his jeans and extracted the key. The gold glinted seductively in the candlelight. He waved it in James’s direction, saying, “Come and get it, Prongs.”

“Sirius,” cried an exasperated and stiff-necked James, “you don’t expect me to wrestle you for it, do you?”

“Mr. Potter really wants this key, does he?” Sirius taunted, just out of reach of James’s outstretched arm. “Why, Mr. Potter, you seem awfully…excited about this. Of course, I understand how someone in your position would--Uh-uh!” He laughed and jumped back as James tried a weak lunge. “--would want to get laid. Does the future Mrs. Potter know you have such a one-track mind?”

“Evil bastard,” muttered James as he took another swipe at his grinning friend, but came away empty-handed. “I’ve heard that sex is the only thing that can make Mr. Black shut up and I, for one, want to see that.”

“Who’s been talking? Not you, was it, Remus?” Sirius gave Remus a nudge with his boot. “I’m not taking you on any more double dates, if you tell on me.”

“Mmm. What?” Remus, sitting on the stone bench that ran around the edge of the pool, looked up in confusion.

“Mandy Barnes!” said James triumphantly and snatched the key away from a momentarily distracted Sirius.

“Really? Bugger.” Sirius rubbed his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “I have got to stop dating the friends of the future Mrs. Potter.”

Peter giggled nervously and then latched onto James. “What’s with the key, d’you think? Is it charmed?”

“Let’s check it for spells, shall we?” James took out his wand. With his best “Head Boy” stance, given his misbehaving neck and shoulders, he tapped the key several times. It glowed weakly in his palm for a few seconds. “It’s marked by magic, but only in a minor way, for identification more than anything else. That probably means there’s something else here...” He paused and looked around the little courtyard. “…a lock of some sort that fits the key. What do you think, Sirius?”

James had forgotten Sirius’s previous taunts, now that a problem presented itself. Secretly, he was glad for the distraction. It stopped him from dwelling on just what would happen if they succeeding in unlocking the secret to Tigerseye.

“Mmm. Good point,” Sirius answered as he looked carefully around them. He and James knew a lot of spells, more than were officially taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And he had learned considerably more lately about spells for concealment and protection as he worked with that infuriating Auror on the preparation of the wedding site. In fact, the last seven weeks had been more instructive than seven years of Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons at school. The knowledge had come with a price: nothing came free from Alastor Moody.

The sky was dazzlingly overcast. The glare came from all directions at once, defying anyone to detect the true position of the sun.

Sirius was glad for the sunglasses, part of the disguise as an elderly Scottish tourist that Moody had decreed for today’s reconnaissance. He wouldn’t want to be seen by anyone he knew, disguised as he was, but whom could he possibly know here in this landscape of sheep and Muggle tourists? His own mother wouldn’t recognize him wearing these large plastic sunglasses, the sort favored by old Muggles, which fit with the gray hair, the baggy pants and the godawful plaid Tam o’ Shanter.

They stood in a large field, a flat expanse of bright green turf bounded by the village on one side and by clumps of dark green trees on the others. A narrow country lane bisected the field. The fences running alongside the little track kept sheep on one side of the lane and tourists on the other. On this Saturday afternoon in May, the tourists had come not to see the sheep, which were quite ordinary, but to see the standing stones, remnants of ancient Britain and of an ancient magic, although the lingering magic in the stones was not evident to all. Scattered about the field, the lumpy gray pillars of rock stood upright like great troll-like shepherds. Some tourists picnicked; others, like the two disguised wizards, strolled. One energetic young Muggle, wearing a flowing, multi-colored robe, had climbed on top of one of the stones and sat cross-legged, playing a guitar and singing off-key.

Moody too was dressed as an elderly Scottish gentleman, complete with a bright green and red kilt and a scraggly white beard that would have looked better on a goat. The disguised Auror shuffled along slowly, leaning heavily on a battered black cane in a convincing imitation of an octogenarian. The hollow cane was not only part of the disguise, but also held Moody’s wand. Public use of magic amongst so many Muggles was not legal, of course. However, the Auror, ever fearful of Dark wizards, wanted to be ready for trouble.

“Aye, there’s the heart of it,” a white-haired Moody said softly. As part of his disguise, he had abandoned his slight, but unmistakable, Geordie accent in favor of a Scottish brogue.

He held the hand-drawn map close to his face, pretending to be near-sighted so that no casual stroller could see the symbols covering the piece of parchment. Those symbols would have looked exceedingly odd to any of Muggles around them, though perfectly understandable to most wizards. The map was needed because Moody was concerned about where to place the wards and Muggle-repelling charms to take full advantage of the native magic, while James wanted the ceremony itself, which would need a certain amount of magical energy, to be right at the center of the old magic.

Sirius and James had worked together for two weeks on the map, an hour or two after dark on most days when they could inconspicuously survey the patterns of magical energy that still resided in the ancient stones. Although the task wasn’t as challenging as creating the Marauder’s Map, Sirius had enjoyed it for the fun of working with James. Almost as if they could read each other’s minds, they’d often come to the same conclusion at lightning-fast speed. That made the mapmaking seem less like work than play.

But where was James today? Off with Lily picking out cake decorations for the wedding, or something equally stupid, leaving Sirius to deal with the fake Scotsman.

“Too many people here,” Sirius said in a low voice audible only to Moody. “I don’t see why we need to do this in broad daylight.”

“Accent, boy, you’re forgetting your accent,” Moody whispered harshly.

“Fuckingridiculous,” Sirius muttered to himself. He’d been talked into wearing the disguise and into spraying some weird Muggle stuff on his hair to turn it gray, but he wasn’t going to put on an accent as well. Not that he couldn’t do it. When he was up north, Sirius could get along tolerably well in most Scottish dialects, except perhaps Glaswegian. Given the kind of pubs that he liked to visit, he didn’t fancy being called a “focking English wanker” by the Scottish locals.

“Magic’s not the same at night as it is under full sun. You’ve got to know these things, else the wards and charms won’t work properly,” Moody said, shaking head slightly, as if talking to a slow child. “Ah, here we are.” He stopped and pointed his cane at a nondescript patch of turf. “Time for lunch.”

They had come to the magical nexus, a patch of short springy turf that had no stone or other marking. There was nothing to see because the invisible magic from the surrounding standing stones converged at that point. Sirius stared at him sullenly, then reluctantly laid out the red and green tartan blanket that Moody had handed to him when they’d first met up earlier in the day.

The field was quiet except for the occasional swell of conversation from one group of tourists or another, the incessant buzzing of flies, and the cracked and reedy voice of the guitar-playing Muggle. Moody made a big show of sitting down, as befitted his elderly persona. Once seated, he surveyed the surrounding field unhurriedly. Satisfied, he nodded to himself and then shoved the wicker picnic basket that he’d brought toward Sirius. He spread the map on the blanket and concentrated on its multicolored lines and symbols.

Sirius realized how hungry he’d become when he dug into the basket, which contained a roasted chicken, several apples and a wedge of Cheddar, all wrapped in an assortment of mismatched napkins. There had been no time for a bite to eat this morning when he’d woken early--too early for his pounding head and unsettled stomach, the result of a bit too much to drink on Friday night--and then met Moody in Norwich, after which they’d taken a long, complicated path, Apparating and Disapparating through five different places and then finishing with a three-mile walk across the countryside.

Paranoid bastard, Sirius thought as he tore off a chicken leg. He was about to take a bite, but he stopped himself.

“Here,” he said, handing the piece of chicken to Moody.

The Auror looked up from the map. “Thank you, lad. Nice to see a bit of respect for your elders.”

Just making sure you’re not trying to poison me, old man. Constant vigilance.

Respect and fear, Sirius had learned, were really two sides of the same coin. Only after Moody had taken a bite and was chewing away contentedly, did Sirius attack the rest of the chicken.

“Nicely done, this map,” Moody said, pointing the chicken leg down at the parchment. “Potter’s work mostly, is it?”

Sirius bristled at the obvious insult. The ghost of a smile on Moody’s face angered him even more, but he swallowed his outrage along with the chicken and smiled back. “James and I make a good team.”

“So I’ve heard from Dumbledore,” Moody chuckled. “The headmaster says you’re both top-notch wizards.”

Moody tossed the chicken bone into the wicker basket and wiped his hands on the moth-eaten woolen waistcoat he wore. He took out the silver flask from the pocket of his shirt, uncapped it and took a long drink before continuing.

“That temper of yours, boy, I’ve heard about quite a lot about it, too. Yes, I’ve read your file at the Ministry and it’s got quite a lot to say about your doings. You’re a powerful wizard and smart, sometimes too smart, if I read between the lines. Your mistakes have cost you, though. Some people reckon you’re insane, but I don’t think that puts you out of the running for a Ministry job. Humph. Like that time with the werewolf--”

“That’s not sup--“ Sirius began.

“Yeah, I know. It’s not supposed to be in your file, and I’m not saying it is there officially, but these things get around.”

“For Merlin’s sake,” Sirius said in what he hoped was a restrained tone, “Snape wasn’t entirely innocent. That nasty little sneak was trying to get us into trouble and we thought, that is--“

Moody stared at him, his face more inscrutable than usual behind dark sunglasses. Sirius grabbed the cheese from the basket and tore it in half, just to have something to do with his hands.

“--I thought it would be funny to…it was a sort of a joke.”

Snape had started it, after all.

Hogwarts, 1977

James sees him first. Sirius and Peter are fighting over the trading card from the Chocolate Frog that Peter has just stuffed into his mouth. They are, all three of them, hiding in the bushes near the Whomping Willow, waiting for the moon to rise after Remus has been escorted by Madam Pomfrey down into the secret tunnel.

“That dirty Slytherin bastard!” James hisses and tugs at Sirius’s robes.

“Where?” Sirius forgets about the card and scans the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He sees a dark shape flitting between tree trunks, coming closer. He too recognizes the hooked nose and long greasy black hair.

James is first to step out from behind their cover. He and Snape had had it in for each other -- on and off the Quidditch pitch -- for years.

“You’d better get back to your dungeon, Snape,” James says, his wand pointed at the Slytherin standing a few meters away.

“Gryffindors out of bounds,” Snape hisses, drawing his own wand. A familiar curl of the lip replaces the initial look of surprise. “Three…or is it four?”

Sirius doesn’t see who throws the first hex. By the time he can get his wand into action, James and Snape have already traded curses. James briefly sets Snape’s hair on fire. This enrages the Slytherin, who lets loose a bolt of green from his wand.

James falls to the ground ungracefully in a haze of green light.

“You’re in big trouble,” Peter stammers. “Dueling is against the rules!”

“Merely trying to defend myself,” pants Snape. As he catches his breath, a smile of pure triumph blossoms on his face. “Unauthorized dueling--Potter started it, you know. And covering up for Lupin, no doubt. Where’s he got to, I wonder?”

“Go tell the headmaster, then,” Sirius growls. He’s shaking James. Why won’t James wake up? What has the slimy bastard done to him?

“The whole school would like to know, don’t you think?” Snape crows. His wand is still pointed at the three of them.

Sirius glares venomously up at Snape. He is holding James, whose head lolls heavily against his chest.

“You want to know where Remus is, you fucking piece of Slytherin shit?” Sirius laughs that crazy laugh that makes Peter and Remus nervous and sometimes worries James.

But James, who is in no condition to stop him, only moans and his eyelids flutter open.

“Sirius, no!” Peter cries and tugs at Sirius’s sleeve, as if that could stop him.

Sirius shoves the smaller boy away. His world is going dark, collapsing around him. Suddenly it’s all so simple.

Even before they’d figured out how to join Remus under the full moon, they had all hated Snape. “Oh, the look on his face if he could see those bloody great fangs,” Sirius would say and everyone, even Remus, would laugh because it was just a joke, a way to blow off steam when those Slytherins had done something and there was no paying them back, at least not right away.

Just a joke.

“You want to know where Remus is?” Sirius says hoarsely. “Take that long stick, the one over there near the Whomping Willow, and poke at the big knot on the trunk. Go on, you bastard, you might as well give us all detention.”

As soon as he says this, Sirius forgets about Snape. His world is shrinking until there is only one bright, flickering light in danger of going out.

Peter jumps up and runs after Snape, who is striding toward the Whomping Willow.

“Don’t listen to him! Don’t! You ca--“

Snape, an evil grin on his face, pushes Peter aside, knocking him to the ground.

“Ennervate,” Sirius half-chants, half-pleads. He’s shaking James, not paying attention to anything else.

James opens his eyes to the seeing world, the world of the living. He clutches Sirius’s arms and tries to speak. Sirius is tongue-tied for a moment at the sight of the spark that’s back in James’s eyes.

“Sirius! James!” Peter sobs as he crawls across the grass toward them. “He’s done it. He’s going down there and--look!”

Overhead, the sky darkens and in the west, the sun is dying. Peter points at the light suffusing the eastern horizon.

“What-what’s he saying? Who is? Where’s Snape?” James looks around in confusion. Peter points, first to the pregnant eastern sky, and then to the still branches of the Whomping Willow.

James flushes, expelling the last of the hex with a rush of heart-pounding adrenaline. He looks from Peter’s panicked face to Sirius’s stony grimace. And then he knows.

“No, oh, no, oh no. Sirius, you didn’t, did you--” James struggles to his feet. He’s shaky, but his steps become firmer, purposeful, as he runs toward the Whomping Willow. He uses the stick just as Snape has already done and disappears into the shadowy depths.

From deep within the earth, Sirius hears the faint howl of a wolf.

“That was no joke, son,” Moody said quietly, “not the way I heard it.”

For a moment, there was complete silence: no other conversation, no guitar-playing Muggle, not even the drone of a fly. Or, perhaps Sirius had gone temporarily deaf.

“No,” Sirius whispered just as a dissonant guitar-chord was struck in the distance. He looked down at his lap, where the cheese with which he’d been playing had been reduced to a thousand tiny crumbs, about the right size for an army of ants to carry away.

“Slimy bastard!” Sirius angrily swept the crumbled cheese from his lap, scattering the bits widely on the blanket and surrounding grass. He glanced up at Moody, whose impassive face told him nothing. “James was hurt; he wouldn’t come around and I--I went a bit out of my mind. I can’t remember what I said, but I must have... Well, I guess you know.”

“I know the black rage that boils up inside you--it can be worse than a well-placed hex from your worst enemy. You let that anger control you, and you do stupid things, things that’ll get you killed.”

“Or get your friends killed,” said Sirius bitterly. He had taken a knife from the picnic basket and was jabbing it into the rest of the cheese.

“Control, boy, control,” Moody growled, though not in an unkindly way, as he reached across the wicker basket and took the knife away from Sirius. “You’ll learn. Aye, you will.”

Sirius put the remains of the cheese out of sight and bit into an apple instead, while Moody began to explain the complex web of spells for confusion and misdirection that would be wrapped around the wedding party during the ceremony.

“Let’s start with the outer layer,” Moody said, “like an onion, you see? Muggle-repelling charms should do the trick as far as the village is concerned. I’ve an idea as to how to hide the whole bleeding wedding party from the Muggles. Those spells will start here.” He pointed a gnarled finger to the map. “You think you’re up to that, lad?”

Sirius, surprised by the question, hastily finished the apple he’d been eating and said, “Me? Do the charms?”

“I’m not talking to the bleeding sheep, am I? Yes, you.” Moody laughed dryly. “You did a decent Muggle-repelling charm on that bike of yours, so I reckon you can do it here. The spell’s got to cover a bigger area, but it’s pretty much the same otherwise.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” replied Sirius quickly, as if Moody really would give the job away to the nearest sheep if he didn’t answer right away.

“Keeping Muggles away is only part of it,” Moody continued. “Stopping wizards, that’s a bigger problem. And why would a wizard want to gatecrash this here wedding? There’s only one reason that I can see, and it’s a Dark reason, if you follow me. So, the next couple of layers are going to be warding spells; that’s what I’ll be working on. There’s the anchor for the Portkey. Potter and Evans will set that up, though we’ll have to get approval from Magical Transportation, or they’ll pitch a fit about it. And then whatever Evans wants to do in the way of decorations. I’ll leave that to her. Our job is going to be making sure that no one, wizard or Muggle, gets in without an invitation, right?”

“Right. So, where do we start?” Sirius tried to sound confident about all this, although he hadn’t ever tried such large-scale magic. The threat was real enough, if they didn’t do it right, lending a sense of gravity and urgency to the whole project.

“I reckon we can get the spells in place in about a week.” Moody pulled on his fake beard thoughtfully. “It’s getting the damned paperwork sorted out that’ll take time. You’ve got to fill out a stack of forms about as high as one of these stones here to use this many charms near a Muggle village. But we won’t be doing that this time. No, because there are too many eyes and ears at the Ministry that report to Lord Voldemort. Avoiding as much of the paperwork, that’s what we need to do and that’ll take even more time. There’ll be some favors to call in and a spot of bullying to be done in order to cover this up. Dumbledore should be able to help.”

Moody frowned and then paused for a drink from his silver flask. “Time and luck are what we need, laddie.”

“Let’s get down to work.” Sirius took off his jacket, threw it down, and then rolled up his sleeves.

“Maybe there’s something like the spells you’ve been working for the wedding?” said Peter breathlessly. “You know, concealing things and… I mean, it must be a big job to hide a whole wedding out of doors. It is going to be out of doors, right?”

Sirius ignored Peter’s prattle as he turned around with wand raised and cried, “Revelare!”

“Oh, look at that!” Peter pointed at the stone tiger, which was momentarily swathed in a blanket of orange-red light, making the tiger seem more alive than before. Peter squeaked and stumbled backward. He crashed into Remus just as the dark pool of water lit up in a rainbow of colors that flashed in a brief imitation of the famous fountain in Seven Shoe Alley.

Remus helped Peter to his feet and, unnoticed by the others while Peter pestered James with more questions, he took out his wand to investigate the spells contained in the courtyard. There was, he discovered, quite a lot of magic in the small space, a tightly woven tapestry of overlapping spells; some he recognized, some he did not. The others didn’t seem interested in another opinion, though, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

His attention wandered upward, where the high brick walls towered and allowed room for only a tiny patch of sky. Those little points of light that glimmered faintly in the darkness might have been stars; it was hard to tell. The hard angles of the encircling walls framed the piece of nighttime sky so artfully that it put him in mind of a Muggle postage stamp, one that commemorated the passage of an entire way of life: a dead poet, a royal dynasty, the Industrial Revolution. Take your pick.

Had they wandered into some magical labyrinth? The night sky, not always so friendly to him, gave proof that they hadn’t left the planet entirely to enter some netherworld cut off from sun, moon, and stars. Not yet.

He stared until his eyes watered, until he wanted to leap up and join the stars and escape the cloying perfume of the claustrophobic courtyard, not to mention his three more decidedly nervous friends. Peter squeaked when he got nervous, James and Sirius argued, and Remus… he just turned to stone.

Mr. Cool. That’s what Sirius had called him. Although he could be the most animal of the four at times, Remus was practiced at walling off his emotions. Now, standing in the dead end of an alley, part of a quartet of clueless lads looking for what was alleged to be the most exclusive brothel in wizarding London, he wondered whether he should be feeling something more. Anticipation? Fear? Curiosity? He felt relief more than anything else, relief at the opportunity to stop thinking about Dark wizards and dead unicorns.

In general, he tried not to think about the opposite sex …girls… women. What would be the point? Any witch who got to know him intimately would figure out sooner or later that he was different. Put it another way: she’d be scared shitless to be dating a werewolf. Of course, there were plenty of one-night stands out there, as Sirius ably demonstrated. “A dedicated hobbyist,” Sirius’d quip with a deadpan stare as he recounted yet another one of his conquests. Were they all real? It was hard to tell.

But, what else was there for a young, single werewolf? Settle down someday and…? That was about as far away as those tiny points of light overhead.

Oh, he didn’t begrudge James his happiness, his Lily. James deserved to be happy. He seemed to have the knack for it, in a way that Remus suspected he did not. All of that was right up there with other unachievable desires like holding down a full-time job or seeing an end to Lord Voldemort’s insane oppression.

Not that he was entirely without feelings, feelings that crept up on him at odd moments: watching a couple on the Underground, heads together, arms organically entwined, or seeing a girl striding across a busy street, arms and legs exploding with energy, or even on holiday, lying on hard ground at his lonely campsite while listening to the booming sound of waves crashing on the rocky coast below.

The smell of the flowers in the courtyard was making him dizzy, or maybe it was a lingering effect of too many drinks, though it seemed ages ago that they were all sitting in the Leaky Cauldron. Was it his imagination, or did the fountain seem to be getting louder?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~