[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Caught


It was late and Professor Kettleburn and Newt Scamander carried tea cups and books, talking about dragon hatching laws, as they stepped into the teacher’s parlor on the third floor of the castle. Newt Scamander was talking hurriedly about loopholes that he’d left in the legislature he’d helped to pass for the Ban on Experimental Breeding. “Technically the grounds of Hogwarts lies in an extra-ministerial ruling,” he was saying, “And enforcement of the law depends upon the Headmaster’s discretion. As such, if a creature were to be experimentally bred --” he stopped and looked around the room, eyes landing on Professor Veigler, at the end of the table. “Oh, uh… uh yes… uh… hello,” he greeted the younger man.

Veigler waved vaguely without looking up from the book he was pouring over. He had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and his usually Sleekeazy-groomed hair was loose and wild.

“As you were saying, Newt?” Kettleburn asked, walking over to a pair of very plush arm chairs, away from Veigler, and settling himself into one of them, waving for Mr. Scamander to have a seat in the second one. However, Mr. Scamander was holding very still, hugging his briefcase to his chest once again, and staring across the parlor at Professor Veigler with concerned eyes.

Veigler felt his stare and he looked up from his book, meeting eyes with the elder magizoologist, who he couldn’t help but think looked a bit like some sort of refined magical jack rabbit in a long coat. “Can I do something for you, Mr. Scamander?” Professor Veigler asked uncertainly.

Scamander’s eyes searched Veigler’s slowly, then dipped to Veigler’s neck. “What’s that on your collar, Mr. Veigler?” he asked curiously as he took a couple steps closer.

Professor Kettleburn turned to look ‘round the chair he sat in. “Newt?” He spotted Mr. Scamander standing before Professor Veigler, tugging at the collar of his button-down shirt and jumper to see. Veigler struggled to keep the magizoologist from looking. “Mr. Scamander! What in heavens --”

Scamander had got a look though now and he let go and his eyes narrowed as he looked at Veigler thoughtfully. Veigler tugged his shirt back into place, looking up at Newt with pleading eyes. “Sorry, Mr. Veigler,” Newt said, nodding and then clearing his throat and backing away, his eyes slightly wider than they’d been before but otherwise looking exactly the same, his teeth resting on his lower lip. “I apologize, dunno what came over me - you’ll understand, of course…” He stepped backwards quickly all the way to the seat across from Kettleburn and sat down rapidly.

Veigler was still adjusting his tie as Kettleburn slowly turned back away, to look at Newt with a questioning glare. “I’ll - uh - see you lot about,” said Professor Veigler quickly, and he hurried out of the room.

“What was that about?” Kettleburn asked Newt.

Newt had put his briefcase down on the floor between his boots and his long knees sort of wobbled as he sat back, slouching in the chair, his messy greying auburn hair in a puff above his head. He shook his head, “Just a thing I thought I saw. But it was n-nothing, I assure you.”

Kettleburn looked unconvinced.

“Well… where were we?” Newt asked, clearing his throat, “On the, uh, the - the topic of the Ban on Experimental Breeding, yes. Yes, I remember….”




Veigler closed his office door quickly, leaning against it, his heart pounding. He clutched at his robes and pulled them back, looking in his own reflection in a mirror on the wall. The bite on his shoulder wasn’t exactly hard to spot. The half moon-shaped chunk of where Greyback’s teeth had ripped into his flesh when he was just a kid was marked by a bright silvery-pink scar. He put his hand over the scar and felt sick to his stomach, just picturing Newt Scamander telling Kettleburn right that moment that he’d just caught a werewolf on the grounds of Hogwarts.

Veigler hurriedly moved across the room, passing several foe glasses and dark detectors that sat displayed on the shelves of several large bookcases. Each one showed the same thing - a wolfish shadow, a bit blurry and undefined, but enough that there was no mistaking what it was. A werewolf. Fenrir Greyback.

The most famous magizoologist of all time had to of recognized it.

He was pacing the front of the room, trying to work out what he was going to do, when there was a loud sound in the hallway. And another - another.

Veigler went and threw open the door, “Whatever is going on out here, it’d better be ---” he stopped mid-sentence. There was nobody out there. He looked around, side-to-side. “Hello?” he called, certain he’d heard a voice shouting or something... But the corridor was empty. He hesitated, taking a couple steps out. He looked down. The hair on his arms had stood up and he breathed deeply a moment.

He could smell them.

“Homenum revelio,” he called out, waving his wand.

With a crack like somebody had whipped it from them, the invisibility cloak fell off James and Sirius where they stood. James was contorted in an odd position to keep the cloak from revealing their ankles in the back. They both looked equally surprised to find themselves face-to-face with Professor Veigler. Sirius laughed nervously as James dropped the leg he’d lifted in a crane-like stance, and smiled that floppy, cheesy, half-grin that Lily detested so. “Professor,” Sirius drawled, “Fancy meeting you here and at this hour.”

“Yes, incredible,” James agreed.

Veigler eyed them, “I should think that my office would be exactly where might go to find me… The oddity here is certainly you two, so far from Gryffindor tower, after nightfall, and invisible.” Veigler bent down to lift up the fallen invisibility cloak and ran his fingers over the silky texture of it. “Remarkable,” he murmured, looking it over.

James said, “We were going to, uh, get some food from the kitchens,” he lied.

“Yeah, we’re famished,” Sirius agreed.

Veigler said, “You know, this is twice now that I’ve found you two out in places at night that you ought not to be. Why is that?”

James looked at Sirius. “We’re bad boys.”

“Yeah, regular rebels.”

Veigler sighed, “Boys… You can’t be doing this. These are really dark times and I know we’re in Hogwarts and you think you’re safe and all, but we can’t be taking risks just the same. There are plenty of dangers to encounter in this world.”

Sirius nodded, “Right. Okay. Yeah. We’ll just be heading back to Gryffindor Tower, then. Sorry. See you.” He elbowed James and the two of them turned to go.

Veigler sighed, “Boys… You’re forgetting something.”

“Oh - right, my cloak.” James turned back to take the cloak from Veigler.

Veigler handed it to him and said, “Well, there’s also the matter of detention that we haven’t discussed.”




“Another bloody detention!” James complained, ripping the invisibility cloak off them as they entered the dormitory and flinging it recklessly over the open lip of his trunk. “Can’t believe it. They should install personalized seating for us in the detention halls!”

“Shhh!” Peter hissed. He was still up, sitting on the bed studying, a parchment across his knees. He pointed his quill at Remus, who was curled into a ball on his bed. “Dunno what’s wrong with him, but he’s been having a rough go of sleeping over there. Don’t go waking him up!”

“A rough go of it?” Sirius asked, concerned, forgetting very quickly about the detention. He hurried over to check on Remus.

James hadn’t forgotten the detention, though. He sighed and kicked his trunk and got out his pyjamas, kicking off his trainers roughly.

“How did you get detention anyway? Weren’t you all wearing the invisibility cloak?” Peter asked.

“Yes, we were,” James replied. “We were out there, waiting for Veigler to do something interesting if he was going to, and Sirius starts sneezing loud enough to break the bloody sound barrier… Surprised you didn’t hear it all the way up here, loud as it was...”

“Is that what that sound was? Here I thought it was an earthquake or something,” answered Peter smirking. He glanced over to see if Sirius was listening, but Sirius was not. He was sitting on the edge of Remus’s bed, staring down at him. “Is he alright?” Peter questioned.

Sirius looked up at Peter and shrugged, then immediately turned back to Remus, who was whimpering in his sleep, twitching restlessly. Sirius frowned and reached down and pushed a bit of Remus’s light hair off his forehead softly.

James had pulled on his pyjamas and now stood by the foot of his bed, jamming his clothes into his trunk. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Dunno,” Sirius answered softly.

Peter rolled his parchment up and sat up straighter. “Is he ill?”

“He’s got a bit of a temperature,” admitted Sirius, “But he usually does at night. I think it’s a werewolf thing.”

Peter looked between James and Sirius, “But he’s alright, yeah? We don’t need to take him to Madam Pomfrey or anything, right?”

Sirius shrugged, “Dunno.”

Remus whimpered again and shifted, curling even tighter in a ball. Sirius took hold on his hand and held it in his.

Peter yawned. “Maybe - maybe somebody -- ought -- to stay up --- watch him?” he suggested as he stretched.

Sirius glanced back, “You lot can go ahead to bed. I’ll watch over Rey.”

James frowned, “Well maybe we should all stay up.”

Sirius shook his head, “That’d be silly, then we’ll all be exhausted tomorrow. It’s alright, I don’t mind. Go to sleep.”

Peter didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed his blankets down and crawled in and started his pre-sleep snuggling in rituals. James, though, hesitated, “Are you sure, mate?”

Sirius nodded, “I’m positive.”

James climbed into bed then, too, and he took his glasses off, folding them carefully and putting them up on the nightstand and closing his eyes, thinking about Veigler and the stupid detention again.

It didn’t take long before Peter was snoring.

James was still awake, listening to the sounds of the quiet. The quiet clicking and popping of the fire in their lanterns, Peter’s snorts and snuffles, Remus’s intermitall whimpers… “Sirius?” James asked.

“Hmm?” Sirius murmured.

James half sat up and looked over - without his glasses Sirius was a blurry mass - “Veigler ran off from the teacher’s lounge when Newt and Professor Kettleburn went in.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said.

“So what if he’s nervous being around Newt the same as Rey is?”

“Because he’s a werewolf and is afraid of Newt recognizing him?” Sirius asked.

“Right,” James said.

Sirius said, “Maybe.”

James laid back onto his pillow. “But if Newt recognizes Veigler and he says something to Dumbledore, what if it gets Dumbledore thinking about werewolves in school and he decides its a bad idea?”

Sirius frowned. “He won’t. Rey’s been here three years and everything’s alright.”

“But what if?”

“He won’t.”

“Maybe we could take up a petition or something,” James suggested.

“I’d bloody walk out myself is what I’d do,” Sirius said, “Like a protest. That’s how students are protesting racism in America, that’s how I’d handle -- uh -- speciesism here!”

“Speciesism,” James chuckled.

“That’s what it is.”

They fell silent again as Remus let out a particularly pained whimper and Sirius turned his attention solely to him nervously. He looked over after a few minutes had passed and saw James had fallen asleep.

Sirius brushed Remus’s hair from his face again with his knuckles softly and stared down at his poor, battered and scared friend. He hated that the scars were there, that they’d torn up so much of his body, hated the pain they represented. He wished there was a way to sap off all the hurt that Remus had felt - he’d feel it himself if he had to, if only it meant Remus didn’t.

He sighed and reached for a book on Remus’s nightstand, flicking through the pages til he got to their current assignment and he started reading, balancing the book on his knees as he clutched Remus’s hand.

An hour of reading went by - boring reading, awful stuff about Goblin uprisings and the lot before Remus started trembling. Remus had his arms ‘round himself and shivered, like he was cold. Sirius pulled extra blankets up around him but it didn’t seem to be helping. He put the book down on the nightstand again, and stood up, took a deep breath, and transformed into Snuffles. He climbed up onto the bed, under the covers, and wriggled his doggy way up to Remus’s body so that he was bent into the curve, pressed against Remus’s chest and nestling his snout in the crook of his neck. In dog form, he’d put off quite a lot of body heat, like a miniature furnace that could warm Remus right up. At least he hoped so.

Remus’s arms snaked ‘round the dog, pulling him closer, snuggling into his fur with a sigh.