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The Most Muggley-Muggle


Ned Veigler woke as the sunlight blastedupon his face. He had a splitting headache that seemed to tear his skull right in half behind his eye. He struggled to sit up and reorient himself with the world around him. It was dawn, the sun’s rays coming into the cave where he lay were new and brilliantly bright. He curled so that his knees pressed to his chest as he stared at the way the sunlight shimmered against the pale tan rocks at the mouth of the cave. Veigler rubbed his forehead and looked around for the things he’d stowed behind a rock, careful to step around the lumps of chewed up aconite leaves he’d spit all about the floor the evening before.

He withdrew his wand and pointed it at his own head. “Prohibere capitus,” he murmured. The relief was instant. He breathed a sigh and leaned back against the cool stones inside the cave, relishing the freedom from the throbbing pain that had plagued him. After a few minutes of enjoying the relief, he knew he had to start the journey back to Hogwarts before too many people noticed he was missing... He slung the bag over his shoulder and started to crawl out of the cave when he heard a low chuckling deep in the dark behind him. He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

From the shadows emerged the form of Fenrir Greyback. He had a bit of dried up blood on his chin. “Ned,” he drawled, grinning in a profoundly evil way at the Defense teacher. “Long time no see.”

Veigler wanted to run - he did - and the mouth of the cave was so close, freedom just steps away. But he couldn’t.

“Fenrir,” he said lowly.

“Why so long?” Greyback asked.

“I’ve been very busy,” murmured Veigler.

Greyback smiled, his incisor teeth showing with the way he bared his mouth. “Yes, busy… busy teaching at Hogwarts, I hear, working for old man Dumbledore.”

Veigler nodded, “Yes, yes I have been.”

“Come so far… from such humble beginnings… haven’t you?” Greyback moved closer toward Veigler, smiling as he came up to him, his eyes flashing. Veigler bit his lips and held quite still. “You was just a little tot when I took you… just a ickle little tot.”

Veigler nodded, “Well, I was eleven but --”

“Just a tot…” murmured Greyback. “Defenseless. I made you what you are.”

Veigler nodded. “That you did do, yes.”

“Now why are you avoiding me?” Greyback stared into Veigler’s eyes, “Hmm?”

“I’m - I’m not avoiding you --” Veigler said.

“Haven’t seen you since the night of the summoning in Albania last year.”

Veigler hesitated, “I… was lost. Left behind. You lot went on without me, and I… tried to catch up… couldn’t… I thought… maybe, perhaps I’d be most useful… you know, getting in with Dumbledore’s lot.” Veigler looked up at Greyback, seeming to cower away from him as the man moved around him in tight circles, leaning first over one shoulder and then the other.

“Oh I see, you thought you would be useful,” growled Greyback.

“Yes,” Veigler said. Then, plucking up some courage, he added, “And I take it by your haunting the Forbidden Forest for the past three months, and your presence here now, that I must have been right to come to Hogwarts.” He took a deep breath, “What is it the Dark Lord’s asked of you?”

Fenrir Greyback grinned, “You don’t ask the questions here, I do,” he hissed quietly. He leaned in very close and snapped his teeth next to Veigler’s face, then backed away. “The Dark Lord demands an army of werewolves, Ned,” Greyback said, turning and drawing his wand out of his pocket. He turned it over in his hands, “The Dark Lord needs us. And you - your unique position as a professor at Hogwarts - it lends us a certain… upper hand.”

“An upper - upper hand?” Veigler asked.

Greyback sneered, “You see, you’ve got access to the children.”

Veigler’s eyes widened as he looked up at Greyback. “The children?”

“Yes… The children.” Greyback grinned. “The tasty little morsels.” He leaned down again to stare into Veigler’s eyes, “Perhaps if you give us a hand, I’ll let you have a taste of blood before it’s over.” Fenrir’s breath was rank with the taste of blood as he spoke, so close that Veigler could taste it coming from his mouth. Veigler shivered as Greyback pulled away, eyes shining, staring down at Veigler’s cowering form. “How useful are you going to be to me, Ned?”





“You’re mental!”

Sirius grinned, quite proud of himself.

“Positively mad!” James was looking at Sirius with an expression of awe.

The boys were lounging about in the little room off the Trophy Room passageway once again, laying about on the couches, hearing the story of what had happened out in the Shrieking Shack during the night. Remus and Sirius had returned just before lunch and Peter had gone to the kitchens to knick them a bag of sandwiches and pickles to bring with them and they’d spent the next hour gasping and laughing and gasping once again over the story of how Sirius had challenged the werewolf -- and won.

“It was very risky business,” Remus inserted, swallowing a bit of crunchy pickle he’d taken, “I could’ve bitten him off at any time but instead he managed to face me down! It was un-bloody-believable!”

Peter looked wildly at Sirius with the utmost of esteem. “Incredible. Fighting a werewolf and winning. I reckon even Voldemort couldn’t do that!”

“Voldemort would never try, he’d just avada the thing,” James said.

“I’m just saying - the skill set!” Peter argued.

“So now you’re the alpha,” James said to Sirius, he turned to Remus, “Does that make you an omega?”

“Beta, I think was how we settled it, yeah?” Sirius asked, looking to Remus.

Remus nodded. “Yeah, beta.”

“What’s beta?”

“Alpha’s always beta.” Sirius grinned, making the beta sound like better.

Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius. Then, to James, “It’s like second in command. If something happens to the alpha, then the beta becomes the alpha.”

“Well nothing’s going to happen to Sirius,” said James, “You’re literally the most dangerous thing he’s got to worry about out there in the Shrieking Shack. It’s not as though you lot are fighting other wolves and death eaters while you’re out there. Right?”

Sirius bit into an apple. He was laying on the floor with his feet up on the couch beside James. “For now,” he replied, shrugging.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” All three of the others said it at exactly the same time.

Sirius shrugged, “I’m just saying that together Moony and I could be quite the crime fighting duo.”

“Crime fighting duo?!” Peter exclaimed.

“You’d be a regular pair of Lancelot Links,” James sarcastically.

Sirius raised his eyebrows, “Say what again?”

Peter looked rather excited, “LANCELOT LINK! YES!”

“What the bloody hell is a Lancelot Link?” Sirius asked, looking at Remus who was smirking.

“He’s a monkey who’s also a private detective,” Remus answered. James and Peter were both wheezing they were laughing so hard. James slapped his knees and hugged his belly, rolling right off the little couch and onto the floor, nearly crushing Sirius in the process.

“A monkey does private detecting?” Sirius looked surprised and the other three laughed uproariously. “How does he manage that?!”

“It’s a muggle children’s serial,” Remus explained.

“Saturday morning telly, mate,” James said, wrapping his arm around Sirius’s shoulders as he lay on the floor beside him.

“I’ve never had a muggle telly!” Sirius said defensively.

“Well there’s a lot you’re missing,” James said, composing himself at last, and they started discussing the wonder that was children’s weekend programming as they lounged about, wasting most of the day in their private world, deep in the recesses of the school.




Meanwhile, outside, Lily was sitting on the steps of the school, watching as the lightest bit of snow fall from the sky. She stared up at the overcast clouds, the tiny flakes dancing down, brilliant white and lovely. She had a wide smile on her face, her red hair in two long braids down either side of her face, her Gryffindor scarf wrapped ‘round her neck. “Oh Severus, I’m so glad you brought me out here, it’s beautiful.”

Severus Snape sat beside her. He’d seen the snow coming, knew how Lily loved that sort of weather, and had gone to collect her for the surprise. They sat now, side by side, watching it fall. “I knew you’d like it,” he said, pleased with himself for having finally gotten Lily Evans alone and happy. He hadn’t had much chance to talk to her since the incident after the boggart, she’d been avoiding him, and she’d nearly said no to coming outside with him now, she was still so angry with him, but he’d talked her into it. Thanks to the Potion of All Potential he’d taken, he’d been as charming as he ever could be when persuading her to come.

Now, he couldn’t stop staring at the way her green eyes glistened… and then he realized there were tears creeping from the corners of them and one fell across her cheek, sheen and pretty as a diamond. He felt a lump rise up in his throat and he leaned forward to her. “Lily, are you crying?”

She swallowed back the emotion and wiped her eyes quickly.

“What’s the matter, what did I do this time?” Severus asked, worried.

“It isn’t you, Sev,” Lily said softly, “it’s not you. This is wonderful, thank you.”

“Then why are you crying?” he asked, taking her hand. He thought hard for a moment, then looked away across the grounds, as though whatever it was that was making her cry would be there for him to spot, but there was nothing there except the lightly dusted grass and the shivering lake.

Lily’s voice was thick, “I wrote a letter to Tuney after that awful boggart… and… well first she wouldn’t receive it and then my parents received it for her and told her she had to write back or else she’d be grounded and she wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house. So she did - and she -” Lily’s nose was running. She ran her fist beneath it, clearing away the wetness of it that hand mingled with her tears.

Severus hastened to find something she could wipe her face with and, finding he didn’t have a handkerchief, he quickly untied his Slytherin necktie and handed it to her.

She took it, dabbing at the corners of her eyes.

“What did Tuney do?” Severus asked, his voice hard with anger.

“She wrote the most horrible things, Sev,” Lily whispered. “She said she didn’t even count me as a sister anymore and that I was nothing more than a freak of nature and she didn’t wish to hear from me again and that she’d continue to receive my owls only because she didn’t want our parents to know she hated me. She accused me of having them spellbound. Said I made you do it and if I hadn’t then they wouldn’t be as hopelessly infatuated with magic and they’d know better and see me for the freak I am.” Lily choked up.

Severus hissed, “She’s an awful human being, your sister. The most muggley-muggle there is!”

“No… No.I just wish Tuney wasn’t a muggle!” Lily cried. “If I could give her even half my magical ability, I would! I would give it all to her if it meant we could be friends again!”

“But you’re brilliant,” Severus said, “You’ve got better than a sister in the deal. She’s rubbish anyway!”

Lily wiped her face with the necktie again. “You don’t understand. You haven’t got a brother or anything to understand how it is when they stop being your friend after they’d always been. It’s awful. It’s like a bit of your soul is torn away.”

Severus thought he might understand what that was like - every time she laughed at one of James Potter’s jokes, he felt that way. But he didn’t dare say that to Lily. Instead, he exercised his full potential at keeping his mouth shut. Instead, he took her hand in his, and with the other hand he turned her face gently to face his, and he stared into her brilliant green eyes with fervor and he said, very deeply, very thickly, “Your soul is too grand for that.”

Lily blinked in surprise, “What?” she whispered.

“Lily, you’re the most beautiful soul I’ve ever known,” he said.

“Where is this coming from?” she asked, panic in her eyes.

Severus tapped her hand to his chest, right over his heart. “There,” he said.

“Bloody hell, Severus.” Lily stood up. She looked quite terrified. “I gotta go.”

“Wait,” he said, getting up, too, “Don’t go. Lily, why --”

“I just gotta go, Sev. I’m sorry.” She ran up the stairs, the long Slytherin scarf flapping behind her as she went like a captured banner.

Severus sighed and covered his eyes.

A shadow passed over him then and he looked up to see Professor Veigler, limping slightly, bruises on his arm. The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher stepped around Severus Snape on the stairs and went in through the front doors of the castle, wincing as he pulled open the heavy door. Severus’s eyes followed him as he crossed the great hall toward the staircase before the door closed behind him.

Where was he coming from? Severus wondered.