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“We don’t sell a lot of non-magical zoology books, mind,” the shopkeeper at Flourish and Blotts said, dodging ‘round a display where a pop-up book sat open, a great big paper orca whale jumping out from it’s pages. Charlus Potter followed behind him, pushing the orca aside as he ducked under the outstretched fins. “But the section on non-magical creatures is just over here.” He waved to a squat shelf, lined with dusty-looking books. “All by muggles, mind,” he added.

“That’s fine,” Charlus replied, “Muggles probably know better than we do about the non-magical creatures.” Charlus knelt beside the shopkeeper as he tugged out a thin purple book. ZooBooks it said across the top, and in the center was a large photograph of a wolf.

“They’re technically children’s books… but it’ll tell you quite a lot about the creatures.” The shopkeeper looked the book over a moment, then held it up for Charlus to take.

Charlus flipped through it thoughtfully a moment, then asked, “What about one for stags?”

“Deer?” The shopkeeper dug through the shelf a few more moments, then withdrew another one. This one had a big buck on the cover. “Here we are.”

Charlus nodded, “Perfect. I’ll take the lot.” He took the deer Zoobook and followed the shopkeeper back to the counter till and paid him several silver coins, tucked the books into his pocket, nodded his thank you to the shopkeep and ducked back out into Diagon Alley. He looked about with a sharp eye, pulling a porkpie hat low on his brow as he moved, trying to keep a low profile. Dora had told him not to go to Diagon Alley, to let Kingsley Shacklebolt or Alastor Moody or one of the Prewett brothers to get whatever it was that he needed at the shops for him. But James had specifically asked Charlus to get the books, and it meant a good deal to him to be the one to get the books. Besides, he was getting a bit stir crazy hanging about the Potter house without ever leaving, even if his mates were all visiting almost everyday. He missed going to work and popping about the shops of Diagon Alley to sell the Sleekeazy potion. He missed seeing Madam Malkin and Florean Fortescue and the funny little man who sold toads on the corner by Knockturn Alley. He missed the way it smelled out in the city, and now he stood, disguised as much as was possible to be, taking a deep breath of that scent.

Suddenly, a witch ran into him, scurrying from down the street. She banged into his chest, dropping several vials she held in her arms. They hit the cobblestone ground. One of the three that fell had burst open, sending green stuff spattering across Charlus’s robes. She stood there, petrified a moment, staring up at him with wide grey eyes. Charlus didn’t know who she was, but he got the feeling she knew exactly who he was by the way she stared at him. He reached for the bottles that hadn’t shattered, “Here, let me lend you a hand,” he said.

Then there was quite a lot of shouting coming from down the street, and spells being shot through the crowd, a voice that he recognized shouting stunners, and the woman ducked around Charlus and ran on, pulling the hood of her robes up over her head before turning down a side alley and disappearing.

Alastor Moody and Fabian Prewett, both wearing their official Ministry of Magic auror robes, ran up, wands drawn. It had been Fabian’s voice that Charlus had heard shouting the stunning spells, and Moody ran on past where Charlus was just getting up, the green vials in his hands and a surprised look on his face. “What’s going on?” he asked Fabian Prewett.

Fabian was staring at the vials in Charlus’s hands with a peculiar expression on his face. “Oh Potter,” he muttered, “Please tell me you didn’t touch any of that.”

Charlus looked down at the green spattered on his robes and the little bit he’d gotten on his hands in picking up the vial. He looked at Fabian. “What is it?”

Fabian frowned, “We’ll be needing to bring you to St. Mungo’s, Potter,” he said. “Right way.”




James and Sirius were working with Frank Longbottom and Andy Woodhouse on the lawn of the castle to set up the telescopes for the Orionids, which were to be at their peak that night. As their detention from Zosma had commanded, they’d all shown up promptly after lunch to assist with the telescopes. “Exposed to dragon pox?” Andy Woodhouse said, “Bloody hell, that’s not good.”

“I know,” James said. He was holding steady the scope they were working on as Sirius tightened screws carefully from below, laying on his back beneath the tripod. “They’ve put him in a sort of quarantine, mum says.”

Frank said, “Yeah, I don’t doubt it! Dragon pox are terribly contagious, and it stays stagnant for so long that even ten years from now he might suddenly come down with the fever… and then the spots… and the belching fire...”

“My grandfather had dragon pox,” said Andy, staring down into the eyepiece of the telescope, talking absently as he spun the dial to adjust the focus, “He’s dead now.” When he looked up, all three of the others were staring at him with horrified expressions. “Well, not from the Dragon Pox -- he was old is all. Sorry.”

James breathed in relief.

“Besides, he letter said might have earlier,” Sirius said, filling in a puzzle piece that James had forgotten to mention to the other two on this retelling of it. “Your mum’s note said he might have been exposed to dragon pox. They were still running tests.”

James nodded as Sirius checked the lens on the scope. When James had gotten the letter, Sirius had been nearly as upset by the news as James had. He’d snatched the note from his hand and read it over several times pacing the dormitory himself as James had stared blankly at the wall trying to digest the information. Sirius’s persistence that the words might have were very important had been repeated several times since Bubo had squeezed her way in through the boys’ open dormitory window.

Frank and Andy moved on to their next telescope. “I’d like to know who the witch was that was running through Diagon Alley carrying a whole load of dragon pox vials and why,” Frank said.

James shrugged, “Dunon that either. Mum was really dodgey about that part, said Moody and the Prewett brothers were chasing after her, but that’s all she knew, and Moody was doing investigation, said it’ll probably be in the Daily Prophet the owl post delivers in the morning and she wanted me to know about my dad before it got around the school about him being exposed.”

Frank nodded. “Scary world we live in, when a man goes to Diagon Alley and gets exposed to dragon pox!”

James said, “I know.”

“What was he doing in Diagon Alley anyway?” Andy asked, “I thought you lot had your house under a Fidelius after the muggle rescue fiasco last term?”

James turned red, and so did Sirius, who chewed on his lower lip and nodded that they were ready to move on to their next telescope too.

“He just was getting some things,” James said.

The real answer, of course, was that Charlus Potter had been there after their books - which Dora Potter had sent along with the note telling him about the possible dragon pox exposure. James already felt sick to his stomach with guilt about it. Even though his mum hadn’t said in the note that it was his fault or anything, he still felt like it was. He had a feeling Sirius did, too, by the way he’d looked when he read the letter through. After all, if it wasn’t for him and Sirius, Charlus would’ve been just fine at home back at the cul-de-sac, invisible to the world and safe.




It was much, much later, during the meteor shower, as nearly the entire school was out on the grounds, taking it in turn to look through the telescopes they’d spent all afternoon setting up. The skies were dark and speckled with starlight, punctuated now and then by a couple of meteors streaking across the sky. Professor Zosma was walking among the students, huddled about on blankets across the grass, talking with a magically magnified voice about the meaning of what they were seeing.

Sirius, James, and Peter sat on a blanket at the foot of Remus’s wheelchair, Sirius leaning against Remus’s good leg with his head on his mate’s knee. Peter was digging through his bag from Honeydukes, which he’d brought along to the shower so that he wouldn’t go hungry. James was staring away across the grass to where Lily was lying on a blanket with her friends. He was using his wand to grow and shrink a snail that had wandered onto the blanket from the grass as he watched her.

“Orion, the great hunter, was honored by the god Zeus by having his image placed in the sky, along with the scorpion that killed him,” Zosma was saying. “The scorpion bit him on his heel, which is represented by the star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky…”

“You’re the brightest star, mate, you hear that?” Remus said in a teasing voice, pausing in taking notes.

Sirius snorted. “Dunno about that.”

Zosma continued on, “...Sirius alternately represents the hunting dog of Orion, who would be sent into battles ahead of the great hunter to lead him to his prey… Orion’s arrow aims the direction that Sirius points so as to hit his mark.”

James yawned, looking away from Lily for the first time in hours, “Bloody hell, they seriously brought us all out here just to stare up at a bunch of shooting stars?” He let the snail, slightly larger than he’d been before, escape at last. “This is boring. I thought this was supposed to be important or something.”

“I’m bored, too,” Peter replied around a mouthful of chocolate cauldrons.

Remus said, “It is important. The shower comes from the comet Halley, and the debris is hundreds of thousands of years old and --”

“Blah, blah, blah,” muttered James. He looked about for Zosma, then turned to look at the other three, “She’ll never notice if we nip off.”

Sirius looked over, “Nip off and do what?”

“Dunno, anything,” James said, “Anything but sit here and stare at the bloody boring sky.”

Remus looked disapprovingly at him, “You can’t sneak off during class!”

“I could…” James said and he slowly stood up, grinning devilishly at Remus.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh I would,” said James.

Remus eyed him, “You shouldn’t,” he amended.

James’s eyes sparkled. “Mate, the best things are things we shouldn’t do, haven’t you realized that yet?”

Sirius grinned.

Remus shook his head, “You go. I want to hear this.”

Peter was still rustling about in his bag of treats.

James nudged him, “Pete. C’mon. We’re going to nip off and do something. You coming?”

Peter looked at Zosma, then back up at James, “But she’ll notice we’re gone…”

“Fine then.” James turned to Sirius, “You’re in, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Sirius replied, standing up and dusting off, “If I hear one more story about bloody Orion and his bloody dog, I’ll blast myself. Let’s go.”

Remus looked up at him pleadingly, “You of all people should be interested in this!” he said, “They originate from the center of the constellation that nearly all your family is named from! Each one of these meteors, according to Vablatsky, could represent some major life event for your family.”

Sirius laughed, “Unless one of those ruddy meteors falls from the sky and knocks Father’s head off his shoulders it won’t matter to me. When have I ever given a damn about my family?” And before Remus could reply or try to talk them out of it, James and Sirius hurried off into the shadows that lined the foot of the castle, following the perimeter away.

Remus sighed.

“Could a meteor really fall from the sky and knock somebody’s head off their shoulders?” Peter asked, worriedly looking up to see how close the meteors were coming.

“I suppose a meteorite could,” Remus answered, “But it’s very improbable.”

Still, Peter kept a closer eye on the shower after that.