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Gideon Prewett’s Peacock


“Alright Snivellus?” James called as the Marauders passed by a cluster of the Slytherins in the halls on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts. He’d spotted Severus Snape from down the hall and nudged Sirius to attract his attention, grinning and winking as he’d drawn his wand from his robe pocket and causing a loud pop to go off directly behind Snape, making him jump in surprise. Sirius snickered at the expression of shock on Severus’s face.

Realizing what happened, Severus glared at James as he laughed, but, spotting Lily Evans out of the corner of his eyes, he stopped himself from drawing his wand in retaliation.

James grinned. “Small noises make you twitchy, Snivellus? Maybe scared the dementors are coming.” He pulled his hood up onto his head and snickered as he waved his fingers at Severus tauntingly as he passed.

Sirius followed suit, laughing as he did. “Watch out for the bogey man.”

Lily glowered, “You lot are absolutely ridiculous. Five points from each of you.”

Severus looked pleased.

“Ten points from your own house? Are you mad?” James whirled on her. “We’re already behind with the house cup.”

“That’s what you get for being a bully,” Lily retorted smartly. “Should’ve thought of that before you went and acted like a git.” She glared at Remus, “Shame on you for not stepping in already!”

Remus turned red, “I --”

“Don’t worry about it, Rey. I’ll keep them in line my bleeding self. And Sirius, you best put that tie ‘round your damn neck where it belongs or I’ll give you another five points,” she added, turning on him and pointing to the Gryffindor tie he had tied about his skull.

Sirius tugged the tie over his nose as Lily glowered at them, watching them walk away in a cluster. “Honestly! Like my tie on my head is really affecting anyone besides myself! What is it with McGonagall and Evans and my tie being about my neck?”

James was stewing about the ten points off the Gryffindor hourglass down below in the entrance hall.




Remus brought the Grade 7 Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook along to the first DADA class after returning from the holiday break, determined to learn about the Patronus Charm as quickly as possible.

It had been quite a terrible few days at Hogwarts - even aside from the ten points Evans had taken from Gryffindor. Everyone in the school was on edge on account of the report of the dementors. Stories went up among the students in the Great Hall, tall tales spread about by attention seekers, claiming they’d seen the dementors floating about on the edge of the grounds. Every time that the conversation had come up ‘round the Gryffindor tables, Sirius had boasted loudly that the dementors didn’t bother him in the least and that if he was to be faced with one he’d simply tell it to sod off. “Wouldn’t bother me a mite!” he shouted loudly. Of course, Remus knew better; even as Sirius was boasting about how bloody not afraid of the Dementors he was - and teasing Severus Snape with the threat of them along side James - he had actually been having nightmares every night.

Gideon Prewett looked exhausted as he entered the classroom, carrying a briefcase and limping slightly. The demeanor that filled him was far removed from the happy-go-lucky excitement that usually radiated from either of the Prewett brothers. He slouched to the front of the room, tossed the briefcase onto the desk, and sank into the chair behind it.

All five of the Gryffindors were caught off guard by this demeanor and they exchanged glances. Lily looked forward at Gideon, “Mr. Prewett, sir,” she asked, “Is everything alright?”

Gideon nodded. “Long day at the Ministry. Just come from there. Fabian’s not going to be joining us today - working on an important case - well, some of you lot know about Newt Scamander and the children he’s rescued, yeah? Fabian’s out helping him in returning them safely to their homes, freshly obliviated of course.” Gideon smiled weakly, then he stood up and walked ‘round the desk. “Ministry’s crawling with dementors, of course, so you understand… takes a moment to recuperate… Now if you’ll all turn to page 245 in your textbooks, we’ll start off with a quick review… Yes Mr. Lupin?”

Remus had raised his hand and waved it insistently. He said, “Mr. Prewett, I’ve been reading a… a bit ahead in the Defense lessons and I found something I was hoping you could explain and… and maybe teach us. Because of the dementors.”

Gideon looked confused.

“It’s the Patronus Charm.”

Now he looked even more confused, “Hang on, they’ve moved that to Year 5… no, it can’t be, that’s mental…” he grabbed up his copy of the textbook from the desk and started to flip to the glossary in the back.

“No, sir,” Remus said, “I’ve read ahead. I mean way ahead. I’m talking about in the Grade 7 textbook”

Gideon looked up .”You’re reading Grade 7? You know you’re in Year 5, yeah?”

“I finished ours twice and read Grade 6, so when I finished that, Grade 7 seemed the next logical read,” Remus replied, shrugging.

Sirius grinned down at his notetaking parchment. Moony never failed to impress. Even Lily Evans was staring over gaping-mouthed at him for it. Clearly, it never occurred to her to read so far ahead. Sirius reached an arm over and petted Remus’s knee with a smile.

Gideon said, “Well, it’s - it’s very advanced magic, you understand. Even advanced for Grade 7. It’s mentioned more of an aside - typically taught at university or in the Auror training program. When we covered them in school in my day, our teacher simply mentioned them for but a moment, showed us her Patronus.”

“Can you do one?” James asked at exactly the same time a Lily asked, “What’s a Patronus?” James looked at her and grinned as they spoke over one another. Lily rolled her eyes.

Gideon paused a moment, and then waved his wand in the funny pattern show in the book… and suddenly a great white mist seemed t fall from his wand, recollecting itself as it hit the floor until a ghostly peacock, with a long trail of diamond-patterned feathers streaming behind it appeared and all five of the Gryffindor fifth years stared at it with black jaws. Remus leaned forward over his desk to see the wonderl patronus before him.

“Ruddy brilliant,” whispered Peter.

“Whipping werewolves!” Sirius exclaimed, his eyes wide.

Remus looked over at him.
Sirius grinned wickedly, “Just an expression, Moonpie.”

Lily was standing up to see the full of the shimmering peacock over her desk. “What is a Patronus charm?” she asked eagerly, her fingers tightening and loosening ‘round her willow wand. Just the sight of such a majestic thing as that peacock was made her wish to produce one.

“A Patronus Charm is a protective defensive force, one of the most powerful tools a wizard can utilize. The charm is the embodiment of the caster’s happiest memory, and therefore is capable of driving away dementors… It will fiercely protect it’s caster, whatever it is up against though, similar to a shield charm except the Patronus is a thinking, moving entity, driven by a magic of the deepest sort. It actively protects you, as opposed to the shield charm.” Gideon walked ‘round to where the peacock bird stood, staring about at them with blinking eyes. He ran his palm over the bird’s head gently.

“Will you teach us?” Remus asked.

“Teach you? The Patronus? In Year 5?” Gideon sounded increasingly shocked with each question.

“Yes.” Remus nodded. “With dementors hanging about on the grounds of Hogwarts, it’s important isn’t it, that we know how to protect ourselves against them?”

Gideon’s hand dropped away from the peacock and with a poof of smoke, the bird was gone. Gideon stared at Remus a moment, then about at the other four, and he replied, “I dunno if it’s … if it’s even possible -- blimey, year five… It’s beyond O.W.L. level magic, Mr. Lupin. Beyond N.E.W.T., even.”

“But it’s important we know how to protect ourselves!” Sirius said, standing up suddenly, the feet of his chair squealing on the stone floor as he did it.

Gideon paused, “I’ll need to talk to Fabian. And to Dumbledore. I mean it’s brilliant - a brilliant idea. Being equipped for the unthinkable is always the best policy, yes…” he rubbed his chin, “As I say, I’ll need to speak with Fab and the headmaster. Is that okay?” he looked at Sirius, then Remus.

Remus nodded.

So, the idea planted, they all turned to page 245 and started doing their work.




On the way into the Great Hall that evening, a Ravenclaw girl stopped Sirius suddenly. “Sirius Black,” she said, stepping in front of him, “I have a note for you.” She held out her hand and in it was a folded up bit of parchment.

Sirius stared at it in confusion. “Who’s it from?”

“Dunno, some Hufflepuff girl brought it over to me, asked me to give it over to you.”

“Er - well, thanks.” Sirius took the note and breezed by the girl into the Hall, over to the Gryffindor table as he shook the note out. It was Regulus’s printing inside and Sirius sighed, then, without even reading it, he balled the note up.

“What is it?” Remus asked.

Sirius shook his head, “Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing at all.”




At the Slytherin table, Regulus watched his brother opening his note… watched him barely even glance at it, then ball it up, and his heart broke. He quickly looked away, before Sirius could glance his direction, and he stared down at the plate before him, pushing his mashed potatoes about with his fork.

“He’s a fool anyway,” came a slow, deep voice from across the table.

Regulus looked up. It was Severus Snape whose eyes he met.

“A fool and a bully… full of hatred. He lords himself so important because he’s soooo different from the rest of the Black family, but he’s really no different. Not really. Not on the inside. On the inside, he’s just the same.” Severus took a bite of his dinner, chewing thoughtfully.

Regulus stared at his plate, trying to push Severus’s prodding out with his vague attempts at occlumency. Severus smiled as Regulus struggled to shut down. “Don’t worry, Reg,” Severus said, using the nickname that he’d just seen Sirius using all the time for Regulus as children and Regulus’ cheek burned, “You’re far more different from your family than your brother is.”

Regulus dropped pretenses. “What? How can you say that? I’m a Slytherin.”

Severus answered, “Are you?”

“If I’m not, then I dunno why I’ve been wearing this ruddy tie the last three years,” Regulus quipped.

Severus stared at him for a long moment. “And at heart? Are you a Slytherin at your heart?”

Regulus stared at Severus.

Severus’s eyes narrowed. “What is it that is so important to tell him, hm?” And he closed his eyes, focusing on Regulus’s thoughts…

Regulus pressed harder - holding his breath he was pushing so hard back against Snape - their minds fighting each other, pushing … first toward Regulus… then away… closer to Snape knowing… then so that he was only just barely teetering on the edge of looking into Regulus’s min.d Regulus winced painfully hard, pushing… pushing…

Get out, get out, get out, he begged, Get out. It’s private. It’s private.

Severus Snape could not know about the girl. Could not know about Regulus’s plan... He simply couldn’t…

And then, fists balled… he did it. He pushed Severus out. He knew the moment he’d one it because Severus slammed his fork to the table violently, so hard that several of the water and pumpkin juice glasses tinkled as they clicked together from the force of the slamming.

Mulciber looked over, “What the bloody hell, Snape?” he demanded.

Regulus opened his eyes and they met Snape’s again and he could see the anger in Severus’s black eyes.

“Nothing,” Snape hissed to Mulciber.

Severus did not need Legilimency to see the triumphant shouts happening in Regulus’s mind -- it was all too clear on his face with the haughty expression that quirked up the corners of his mouth and made his eyes glisten.