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The Family Dog


It was afternoon, several days later, and Sirius-aka-Snuffles was still very much a dog. Charlus seemed to enjoy having him about - in fact, Sirius had never had so much bacon in all his life as what Charlus had been sneaking him beneath the table every morning, and he managed to hog up all of the space in James’s bed or else to curl up around James’s head on the pillow at night. But things started to look rather grim once he realized that every time he had to go to the bathroom, someone had to take him outside. And that was made worse when Charlus insisted on nipping out to a pet shop to get a collar and leash for the family dog. Sirius had been even further mortified by the gold dogbone charm hanging from the collar that read SNUFFLES. He missed sitting at a table and eating dinner and talking - boy did he miss talking! He had so many sarcastic comments he’d been forced to keep to himself that were just bursting to get out of him.

He laid across James’s bed, bored, staring at the mirror on the nightstand, where he could see the sunlight breaking across his bedroom back at Grimmauld Place. He sighed heavily.

“Hey, Sirius,” James said, putting down the quill he’d been using to write a paper for Slughorn’s class. Sirius’s eyes moved from the mirror to James without moving his head. “How about a bit of music?”

Sirius sat up. Music was always good. He wagged his tail a little bit.

James smiled and got up from his desk chair, reaching for a record. He slid the black disc out of it’s sleeve, putting it down on the record player and laying the needle down. There was a pop - a crackle - as the needle moved into place… and then…

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog --
Cryin’ all the time
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog --
You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine!

Sirius looked at James with a doggy groan and used his paws to cover his eyes in disapproval.

James laughed, “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s not funny. Here, how about this one --” He took the record off with a shriek of the needle and replaced it with another. “Try this one on,” he suggested.

Pop - Crackle -

So messed up I want you here
In y room I want you here
Now we’re gonna be face-to-face
And I’ll lay right here in my favorite place
And Now I wanna be your dog
I wanna be your dog
I wanna be your dog

Sirius raised his head and growled.

James laughed, “Alright, I’ll stop. I’m sorry. Here. It’s the Beatles for you, mate.” James smirked to himself and dropped one of the sides of the White Album down.

Martha, my dear…
Though I spend my days in conversation, please
Remember me
Martha, my love
Don’t forget me
Martha, my dear…

James let the song play out, though the way the big shaggy dog stared at him from across the room it was clear that he knew perfectly well the song was an ode to Paul McCartney’s sheepdog. James grinned down at the parchment as he got back to work. “You know,” he said, “If getting back to human form doesn’t work out for you, I’m sure Martha’s a really fine sheepdog.”

This was one of the times Sirius wished he had his voice.




James hesitated in the hall outside the Potter’s living room. Charlus was sitting in his chair, tinkering with the springs and doohickeys from inside his watch, which he’d taken apart just to fiddle with the bobbins and reels. James started to back away, but Sirius nudged him in the back with his head, pushing him into the room so that he stumbled. Charlus looked up. “James! Hey.” He smiled widely as James inched across the room, followed by Snuffles. “Heyyy Shhhhhnuffles,” Charlus said, reaching to pat the dog.

“Dad, I have a question,” James said.

“Yeah?” Charlus asked, already turning back to the tinkering.

James swallowed back his nerves, “Well, hypothetically speaking, if someone were to… I dunno… become an animagus, say, and say that you wanted to, like, unchange them from their animal form.. Do you know how you’d do that? Like is there a way for another wizard to force an animagus back to being a person? Say, for like, security purposes?”

Charlus looked surprised. “Blimey! Are they teaching animagi in school already?”

“Well, no, not exactly, no,” James said, “I just…well Professor McGonagall, see, she’s an animagus. She can turn into a cat and I was curious if, well, say there was, you know, a reason to have to force her to be a witch again…?”

Charlus chuckled, “Yeah, Minerva is an animagus, isn’t she? I’d nearly forgotten. It’s been so long.” He smiled to himself.

“Minerva?” James looked confused a moment. “Wait, you knew Professor McGonagall when she was younger?”

“She was a year behind of me at Hogwarts,” Charlus said, smiling.

James was momentarily baffled. McGonagall seemed older than his dad, but then again, who could tell such things? Even Sirius had turned to stare at Charlus. Charlus didn’t seem to notice the funny look his son was giving him, but he grinned at the shaggy black dog. “Whussamatta, Shhhhnuffies? Whussamatta?” He reached out and quickly started rubbing the sides of the great big dog’s neck.

James recovered from his surprise and said, “Well anyway, she showed us how she can become a cat and I thought it was pretty neat and I’m - I’m doing my summer paper on animaguses --”

“Animagi,” Charlus corrected him with a smile, “The plural is animagi.”

“....animagi…” James corrected himself, thinking of Peter, “And anyway, that’s why I need to know.”

Charlus leaned back, stopping patting Sirius (who looked rather upset about the ceasing of the patting), and thought a moment. “Hmm. I know there is one, but I’m not sure what the spell is, exactly. It’s been so long since Transfiguration,” he chuckled, “And I have never once needed to use such a spell.”

“Oh,” James said. “Right… er, well, do you think we have any books laying about that might have it in it? It’s really quite important that I include it in the paper.”

Sirius nudged Charlus’s knee with his head, trying to get the patting to resume.

Charlus shook his head, “No…no, I don’t think I’ve got any that would have that in it.” He rubbed his chin a moment, “Well, I s’pose if you need it that badly, we could floo Minerva and find out.”

Panic rose up in James’s throat. “No,” he said quickly.

“Well she’d certainly know, wouldn’t she?”

“No! I mean - yes, she’d know, but no, we can’t tell her I’m asking about it!” James said quickly.

Charlus, catching on to the panic in James’s voice, looked concerned. “Son?”

“I - it’s just - I - well, this is supposed to be a surprise!” he blurted, fabricating quickly, “Yeah. The paper topic. It’s a surprise. She doesn’t know it’s what I’ve chosen to do it on. I - I don’t want her knowing it’s about animaguses until I’ve turned it in!”

“Hmmm,” Charlus murmured. James was suddenly rather nervous that Charlus might be on to him or something as he rubbed the top of his head thoughtfully. Then - “Well, I believe Minerva has guard duty tomorrow… I’ll pop over and ask her then, make it sound as though it’s something I’m wondering about. How’s that?”

“Guard duty?” James asked, “Guard duty of what?”

Charlus smiled. “Never you mind.”

James wanted to press the question and get the answer from him. Was the Resistance guarding something? If so, what? He glanced at the shaggy black dog, and they shared a look - something they’d gotten quite good at doing for a form of communication since Sirius hadn’t been able to talk for nearly a week now. James was just about to ask more about it when Dora came into the room.

“Dinners ready, you lot,” she said.

“Oh thank Merlin,” Charlus announced, “I’m starved.” He pushed the little TV tray he’d been using as a table for his tinkering away and stood up.

“Dad, I --” James started as Charlus made to follow after Dora.

“I’ll get you the answer tomorrow,” Charlus said with a smile. “No need to thank me.” He patted the top of James’s head, and then excitedly turned toward the kitchen. “Do I smell that fabulous pot roast that you make, with all the herbs, my love?”

James looked at Sirius. “I wish you could talk.”

The dog nodded.

“What do you think they could possibly be guarding? It must be from Voldemort, yeah?”

The dog nodded again.

James sighed, “Bloody hell. Tomorrow can’t come quick enough so we can discuss this, mate!”




Next day, James tried several times to drop hints to his dad that he was curious about where he was going to meet McGonagall and even outright asked if he could come along to hear the answer. “It’s just that, what if she tells you and then you forget it, or tell it to me wrong, and she marks me down?” he asked, worried.

Charlus shook his head, “I won’t forget it, James, and the place I’m meeting her is no place for a boy your age. You run along and play with Snuffles, he looks like he could use some running about. Your mother’s fattened him up rather quickly, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” James agreed with a sigh.

Charlus smiled. “Maybe play some ball with him. Dogs are excellent at ball. They love catching them. I think there’s a tennis ball in the garage from that time Mr. Parish asked me to play with him. Funny game, tennis. You run after a ball with a giant stiff net so that it bounces around a court and all you do is chase after it all the time. There’s really no point in it. Not like quidditch. Silly muggles and their sports,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, silly muggles,” James murmured.

He and Sirius spent the afternoon in the field where they’d taken the potion. Sirius chased squirrels and James sat on a log and wrote a letter to Peter, updating him on what was going on with the family dog as he called it, just incase the letter got into the wrong hands. “We ought to have code names,” he murmured as he wrote. He was so busy staring down at the parchment that he only looked up when he heard Sirius barking.

Across the field, there were two figures, coming closer - and rather quickly. James stood up as Sirius ran toward him, kicking up pollen and flower petals as he ran through the tall grass and wildflowers. James tucked the parchment and quill into his book bag and stood, rather petrified, staring across the field at the figures, until Sirius ran up and grabbed onto James’s shirt with his teeth, pulling him into the woods. James stumbled after him. “Who is it?” he asked Sirius, but of course there was no way for Sirius to answer him, so he just followed the big shaggy dog through the trees.

They got quite a ways in and Sirius tugged James down into a thick bush and pressed himself low to the cool ground. James laid next to him in the leaves beneath the brush and Sirius turned, wriggling himself in the leaves as quiet as possible, and grabbed hold of James’s wand with his teeth, tugging it out of James’s belt loop where he’d kept it and dropping it by James’s hand.

“Oh, right, yeah, good thinking, mate,” James whispered, and he clutched his wand in his fist, ready to fire a stunner if he needed to.

They waited in silence for the sound of footsteps in the trees.