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Scared Ickle Little Beans


October was turning out to be crisp, cooler than usual, and the first frost nearly killed all the pumpkins Hagrid had been growing for Halloween on the night of the 7th. Hagrid could be seen out in all hours of the night wrapping blankets about the pumpkins in the patch and lighting fires around the vegetable garden with Fluffy, the three-headed dog, tagging along behind him. “Right creepy little thing, isn’t it?” Peter asked, eyeing Fluffy one evening as the boys trudged back from the Flying Lessons with the first years down on the pitch.

“I think it’s wicked,” Sirius said reverently. “Not everyone’s got a three-headed dog, you know.”

“You don’t say?” Remus smirked.




Discouraging as it was, James had a feeling that Andy Woodhouse would be picking Frank Longbottom as Captain for the Quidditch team. There were only a couple more lessons left for Andy to make his choice and James just didn’t think he’d been doing so well. Sure, he’d managed to teach Wally how to do a barrell roll, and Liam had improved his grip on his broom considerably thanks to James, but Frank had taken Oliver under his wing and it was thanks to him that Oliver was much steadier on his broomstick than anyone had ever suspected him to be. Dexter kept singing his praises, though, and Vivian insisted that James was the best flyer she’d ever seen in her entire life (“not very impressive seeing as you didn’t know broomsticks could fly two months ago,” said Macy in a snarky tone). But Frank was clearly a better friend to Andy, and he’d actually taken it upon himself several times to go out with the kids on nights that wasn’t flying practice so they could try their hands at different weather types. Granted, James wouldn’t have minded doing this, too but he had Other Things to Do as well.

For instance, there was a good deal of homework for the fifth year classes, seeing as it was their O.W.L year and all the teachers seemed to take that as a cue to absolutely clobber their freetime with homework. Plus he had Sirius bugging him about preparations for some Big Plan that he’d concocted for the full moon (an evening of marauding unlike any we have yet partaken in, he said, and other than his commands for James to help him fetch supplies from about the castle with the invisibility cloak, he would say no more about it). Also, there were the glorious evenings that he had come to think of as Stag Nights.

Because he never knew when Lily Evans was going to go visit the stag - and he couldn’t very well ask for a schedule of events from her - James had taken to sneaking back out of the dormitory every night to sit under the invisibility cloak for exactly two hours, doing homework by dim moonlight, waiting to see if Evans would come down to sneak out to see the stag. Most nights, he’d wasted his time, and he’d finally trudge back to the dormitory, positively knockered and fall into bed with an air of disappointment settling upon him. But twice he had been rewarded for his diligence. Twice, she’d come downstairs, sneaking along, careful not to let the steps creak, and she would slip out the portrait hole door and down the corridor, followed by James, out into the forest on the edge of the grounds of Hogwarts. Twice, he’d snuck through the trees to change into the stag, only to chicken out on telling her again that it was him beneath those tall antlers, him that she’d been hugging and whispering her cares to.

It was as a stag that James learned about Lily’s terrible summer with her sister, and how she dreamed of having a family one day, with two children - “A boy and a girl,” she explained, “so he can grow up and protect her.. And besides, a little boy with his father is the most adorable thing in all of the world and … whoever I marry… I’ll take so many pictures of them together…” her eyes had glistened as though already seeing it in her mind. James had never wanted it more. And she told him about her parents and how proud but clueless they were, and how much she worried about them, about Voldemort killing muggles - for there’d been a brash outbreak of muggle murders in the first week of October. She told him how she worried about the world and Minchum’s granddaughter was weighing heavily on her mind, ever since she’d seen a photo of the little girl in the Daily’s Prophet…

And James listened. And James wished he could hug her…

But he was too afraid to tell her that he was there.

So he stood, holding his antlers up, nibbling deer feed from her palm, nuzzling her with his snout and trying to cheer her up with little honking sounds as he pressed his leathery nose to her face and gave her what she called deer kisses until she laughed...

He wished they were real kisses.




October brought with it, too, a good deal of horrible news in the Daily Prophet. Along with the muggle killings there’d been another attack on Diagon Alley - the old clock shop that had been Mopsus’s had been set on fire and an explosion had burst the front windows, sending glass flying across the alley, injuring several people as the shop exploded.

The same day as the attack, Minchum had done an interview, calling Voldemort out, accusing him of taking the cowards track and hiding in shadows. “Are you a man or are you a coward?” Minchum demanded in his public address, directed to Voldemort’s ears. “Fight me like a man. Return my grand daughter and come after someone with as much magical experience as you have, you snake.”

“Does he seriously reckon she’s still alive?” Sirius hissed, looking at the photo of Minchum on the podium at the Ministry for Magic, slamming his fist against it as he spoke, emphasizing his words. “I mean, it’s nearly been a month…”

“They kept my mum nearly a year,” Peter said. “I reckon she’s a mite more useful than my mum, seeing as he can use her to manipulate the Minister.”

James shivered at the thought of Voldemort using human lives as pawn in his dark and twisted games.

“Pete’s right,” Remus said, “I doubt very much whether Voldemort would kill her. And if he had, he would’ve made a show of it. Just to prove he could defeat the Minister. Lucy Minchum is worth quite a lot more alive and in their hands than she is dead and in the ground, I’d imagine.”

But it happened just a couple days after the explosion on Diagon Alley that there was a photograph in the Daily Prophet, under a headline TERROR AT PICCADILLY CIRCUS, DARK LORD ISSUES MESSAGE TO MINCHUM, HUNDREDS OF MUGGLES IN NEED OF MEMORY MODIFICATION CHARMS! The photograph showed the lighted screens of Piccadilly Circus all blown out and modified to show a message in burning letters, like fire…

DEATH WILL COME TO THOSE WHO STAND IN THE WAY OF THE DARK LORD!

James stared at at the photo in the paper - depicting muggles running away, screaming, clutching their children… black cloaked forms spinning through the air like black smoke - the Death Eaters, disappearing, returning to their master, the Dark Lord.

Whispers filled the Great Hall like a shiver as students read the paper that morning and a heavy fear fell upon the room. Sirius looked around as people started reacting, panicking, crying, whispering frantically.

Down the table, the little first years were freaking out, and Oliver was crying. Wally put his arms around Oliver and whispered, “Ollie, mate, it’s alright, it’s okay…”

“Magic is supposed to be happy,” Ollie cried. “I didn’t know that being a wizard would be so scary. I wish I wasn’t a wizard anymore.”

“No! Don’t be silly, don’t wish that,” Wally said, “If you weren’t a wizard, you wouldn’t have gotten to know me!”

“Yeah,” Ollie said, sniffling as Wally hugged him. “That would’ve been terrible not to know you…”

“Or meee!!” cried Dexter, leaning across to slap his hand against Oliver’s shoulder, nearly tipping over his glass of pumpkin juice.

“Or me,” added Darcy.

Wally looked at Liam.

“What?” Liam asked, who was still staring blankly at the paper.

“You’re supposed to remind Oliver that he’s only gotten to know you because he’s a wizard,” whispered Dexter.

“Oh.” Liam said, “Wait. What? Because he’s scared of the Dark Lord? How does knowing me make that better?”

“Having mates makes everything better,” answered Dexter solemnly.

“Not the Dark Lord,” Liam said. “He’s terrible. He’s going to kill us all!”

Remus overheard the first years talk and he butted in, “No he isn’t. You Know Who has no power here.” He reached for the Daily Prophet, taking it away from them so they would stop staring at it and feeling scared.

“Yeah, taking care of the Dark Lord’s up to the big witches and wizards,” Sirius said, having got up and come ‘round behind the first years, wrapping his arms around Wally and Oliver both, “It’s not somethin’ for you ickle beans to worry about.” He grabbed the roll of Dexter’s plate and took a bite out of it, chewing loudly and grinning at them. He looked over at Remus and winked.

But Wally looked about at the others with a dark look of worry from under Sirius’s arms.




“Did you see how bloody scared those kids were?” James asked, feeling bad for them.

Remus sighed, “Yeah… I felt awful for them.”

Sirius said, “They need to buck up, the scared ickle little beans! Remember when we were their age? We bloody fought the Dark Lord face to face! I can’t picture any of the beans doing that. ‘Cept maybe that one with all the hair. That kid’s wicked.”

“Wally?” Remus asked, smirking.

“Is that his name?

Remus nodded.

“Blimey. He doesn’t look like a Wally. Kid as wicked as all that ought to have a really bang-on name, like Hercules or something.”

“Hercules?” Remus snorted.

Peter spoke up, “I wish we could make those kids feel better about being afraid.” He looked ‘round at the others. “It’s not fun being afraid.”

James patted Peter’s back reassuringly.

“Can’t make courage where it doesn’t exist,” Sirius said with a chuckle.

“Sometimes courage gets buried pretty deep,” Peter murmured.

“Nawh, you’re either brave or you’re scared,” Sirius said, shaking his head, “You can’t be both.”

“Actually,” Remus spoke up, “Being scared but facing that fear is literally the definition of bravery… You have to be both.”

“Yeah right,” Sirius said. He paused. “Is it seriously?”

“Uhh huh,” Remus nodded.

James paused walking suddenly and braced himself, his palm against the corridor wall. “Hang on.”

“I know, shocking isn’t it, Prongs?” Sirius said pausing and looking back at James.

But James’s eyes were unfocused, as though he were seeing something brilliant in an alternate universe floating before his face as he grinned. “Mates, I’ve just found our calling.”