The Ballad of Peter Pettigrew

for anyone who doesnt remember, the goblins were the banker characters who worked in gringotts and looked Uncomfortably Like jewish stereotypes. and youre suppose to suppress their rebellion, where theyre rebelling against the fact that like most nonhuman magical creatures, theyre treated like shit by wizards. yep :)

click thru the top tweet to read the whole thread with all the screenshots, it just gets worse and worse but jesus fucking christ, HOW. i know i shouldnt be surprised that this fucking francise of all of them is pulling this shit but how fucking blatant can you be.

Three of his friends jump and look around. Glinda doesn’t raise her head from her folded arms; only groans, “Is that Baines coming to do me in?” 

Charlie totters to the window and fetches Errol from the window pane. “No such luck,” he says. “You’re still going to have to take the exam.” After some consideration, Charlie lays him on a clear patch of floor to recover. “Do owls take firewhiskey?” he asks the room at large. 

“It’s not fair,” Glinda wails into the tabletop. “I swear he didn’t say anything about Bridgewort’s handling practices when we did the review in class.” 

“Oh, Merlin,” says Ali, freezing over their notes like a Medusa wyvern had bitten them. “Oh, Merlin’s sweet saggy socks. Is he covering Bridgewort?” 

“That’s what he said when I went to his office hours.” Glinda sits up. “You know his lapdragon singed my new sweater?!” 

Charlie decides not to give Errol a nip of whiskey. Flying under the influence is really not done. He unties the letter from Errol’s leg. Ron’s childish spiky handwriting spells out Charlie’s name on the front. Inside is a hastily scrawled message. 

“Yes, we know it ruined your sweater,” snaps Ysabelle. “You told us twenty times. Why didn’t you tell us Baines told you we’re going to be tested on Bridgewort?” 

“I meant to,” says Glinda. “Sorry.” She flicks her pile of notes. “I was lost in the miasma of gloom and desperation.” 

Ali puts their head back and groans. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna say ‘fuck it’ and just fucking walk into a dragon’s mouth so I don’t have to do this.” 

“Hey,” says Charlie. They don’t hear him. 

“How much is this worth again?” Glinda asks her bottle of butterbeer. 

“Twenty-five percent,” Ali and Ysabelle chorus. Ysabelle adds, “and the thesis is fifty percent of our total grade.” 

“Hey!” Charlie repeats. They look at him. He waves Ron’s letter. “My littlest brother at Hogwarts has an illegal dragon he needs to get off campus. Anybody up for a midnight flight?” 

Ginny woke up with a gasp that felt like sandpaper shoved down her throat. Her lungs brimmed with rock and cold water, with the thick musty smell of snake.

She inhaled again and it was softer– she blinked her eyes open as the world rearranged itself. Mildew and stone gave way to the scent of sun-warmed grass. Apple blossoms. Branches cut the sky into shards of blue. 

She had learned how to fly in this orchard. She had stolen her brothers’ brooms out of the shed and practiced when no one was watching her. She knew this view–lying on the ground, looking up–because she had laid out here in the shade on hot summer days, because she had fallen off brooms and bruised herself all over, again and again, knocked all the air out of her lungs.  Ginny sat up. 

-

Ginny sat up. Her mother put a mug of tea down in front of her. Ginny wobbled where she sat and clutched at the rough edge of the kitchen table. 

“Drink your tea,” said Molly. 

“Mum,” she said. “I think I’ve been hurting people.” The Burrow’s kitchen was sunlit and scrubbed clean behind Molly. 

“Of course you wouldn’t, sweetheart,” said Molly. 

“Mum,” said Ginny. “There was blood on my robes." 

"We’ve all killed a few chickens in our time,” said Molly. 

“How did I get home?” She wrapped her hands around the steaming mug. It was cold against her palms, wet and gritty. There was dirt under her nails. She shivered. “I was at Hogwarts." 

"It’s not going to be easy,” Molly said. “He’ll tell you that, someday– the choice between what is right and what is easy. Isn’t that interesting? That doing the right thing is always so damn hard.” Molly put the tea kettle back on the stove. Her apron was thick beige canvas, well-used. “But you won’t really be listening. Because a boy will just have died, and you’ll be thinking about that. About whether or not he had a choice.”

“Who’s dying?” Ginny said. “Who’s going to die?" 

"No one you know well,” Molly said. “It’s alright. No one important to you. Someone very important to other people, but, of course, everyone is. And no, he won’t have had a choice. Right, or easy. But you do." 

-

Bill was trying to brush her hair. It was tangled at the back of her skull, matted, but his hands were very gentle. The chair she sat in creaked under her, old, in need of repairs like everything the Weasleys had ever owned. Sunlight dripped down through the leaves of the orchard. Bill had been the one who taught her to undo the lock on the broom shed door. 

"You haven’t done this since I was little,” she said. 

“You’re still little,” Bill said. His voice was younger, squeakier, and when she tipped her head back she saw his chin smooth and unstubbled, his hair still short and neat, his ear unpierced. 

“I miss you,” she said. “You’re going to leave. You’re going to go on adventures and forget to write home and forget to visit." 

"I’ll visit,” said Bill. 

“Not enough,” she said. “I’m glad you grew your hair out, though. It looks good. Mum doesn’t get it, but it looks more like you." 

Her skull was cradled in his hands, still tipped back, looking up at him. 

"You’re not really here,” she said. 

“No,” he agreed. “You’re all alone. You’re on the floor of the Chamber, can’t you tell?" 

Ginny touched her robes. They were cold and damp, sticking to her spine. Moldy water dripped from her hem onto the dry dirt of the orchard. 

-

"You’re just embarrassing us,” said Percy. He was fussing with his robes, picking lint off them. A sunbeam came through the kitchen window and draped itself around his shoulders. 

Ginny swallowed. “You don’t mean that.” She looked around the kitchen, but it was empty. Mum and her teapot weren’t anywhere. 

“Can you imagine how Mum and Dad will feel?” Percy said. “When it comes out their baby girl has been strangling chickens and killing Mudbloods?”

“No one died,” she whispered. “And don’t say that word." 

"C'mon, Ginevra, no one died but they were meant to. A camera, a mirror, a ghost, a puddle– the Mudbloods got lucky." 

Her whisper shrank and shrank. "Don’t say that word." 

"Mudbloods? Why? You wrote it on the wall in blood.” His face twisted, sneering, twisted and twisted– she had never seen Percy’s face skew that far. She didn’t think faces could move like that. She didn’t think they should. She squeezed her eyes shut. “You’ve been trying to kill people all year, and you haven’t even managed one,” said the thing with Percy’s voice, the voice he used to tell first years to knot their ties properly. “Embarrassing. Maybe tonight you’ll finally get it right." 

"You’re not really here,” she said. “This isn’t real. This is a dream, it’s all in my head, you’re not really here." 

"Of course it’s all in your head,” Percy said, or something that had once looked like Percy said. She wasn’t opening her eyes to see. “Why would that mean it isn’t real?”

-

“Welsh Greens are my favorite dragon,” said Charlie. Ginny pried her eyes open. Charlie smiled at her from across the kitchen table. Her tea was still gone. Percy was gone. The sunlight had faded to pale morning light. She was shivering. 

“I try not to play favorites,” he said. “You know, but sometimes you just gotta admit things to yourself.”

“Charlie, I think I’m dying.” She gripped the edge of the rough kitchen table and it bit into her palms. 

“They’re just so elegant,” Charlie said. “The first time I saw one fly. Do you remember? No, you weren’t born yet, I think. But Dad got suspended for a month, though Mum and Dad didn’t tell us that part–something with Lucius Malfoy–but he had a month off so we went to stay with that old friend of Mum’s in Newport. Right near the preserve. And we went out into it, and the twins kept trying to run off, and Bill spent all his time reading those adventure books he liked so much then, but we saw dragons. A Green sunning, across a gorge. One flying, almost directly over us. And I knew, right then, what I wanted to do with my life." 

"I think it was Lucius who put the diary in my textbook,” she said. “Why would he do that? Why did I write in it? Why did Tom make it? Why did I write back?" 

"See this?” said Charlie, rolling up a sleeve. Two long jagged lines of scar tissue bulged down his forearm, wrapping around it. “Poor thing got stuck in a trap and nicked me when I was getting it loose. Damned poachers." 

"Charlie, I think I hurt people.”

“And here,” said Charlie. He untucked his shirt and showed her a big shiny burn that went all up and down his leftside ribs and hip. “Healing skin,” he said. “It’s the weirdest thing.”

-

“We prank Filch and Mrs. Norris all the time,” said George. He was sitting in a tree in the orchard, the way the twins had used to before they got too big for the fragile branches. “But Merlin’s beard, Gin, never like that." 

Ginny sat cross-legged in the grass, picking stalks and trying to weave a crown. "Do you think Mrs. Norris’ll be okay?" 

"And Justin?” said George. “He’s a little twerp, but my god. We could have helped you put cayenne in his oatmeal or something, come on." 

"It wasn’t me,” said Ginny. “I didn’t mean to." 

"Okay, was it not you, or did you not mean to?” said George. “Those are two different excuses.”

-

“Never trust something if you can’t see where it puts its brain,” Arthur said. Her father was under the car. She couldn’t see him from the mid-chest, up. She couldn’t see his face.

-

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” Ron was lying on his back on his bed and she was laying belly-down on the floor, coloring. The ghoul in the attic banged pipes– angry, desperate sounds resounding like they were in an empty, vaulted space that swallowed up echoes and spat them back. 

“I wrote back,” she said. 

“Yeah, and? Plenty of people have penpals. That’s all you did. You were lonely. Don’t you think I get it? We’re the last ones, you and me. The point where people have seen so many Weasley kids they stop bothering to learn our names. I know.”

“I should’ve known,” she said. She rolled over onto her back, her hair tangling with her colored pencils. It sounded like the ghoul had maybe broken a pipe– a violent hissing shook the room. “Never trust something if you can’t see where it keeps its brain." 

"That’s stupid,” said Ron, sitting up, leaning over so she could see the profile of his long nose, his flop of red hair. There was a spreading stain on the ceiling above him.

“Dad says that." 

"Well Dad’s stupid sometimes. What does where something keeps its brain have to do with anything? Somebody put that diary in your stuff. Someone made that diary– and they kept their brain right in their skull, just like us." 

"So it’s ‘never trust anyone’?” Hissing, snarling, metal on stone, the drip of water. Her skull pressed into the hard floor, too heavy to lift. The noise rose and rose, but she could hear Ron’s voice just fine. 

He shrugged, lanky shoulders bobbing. “I dunno. Maybe it’s 'do your best.’ I dunno. You’re eleven. Why do you have to be thinking about stuff like this?”

“You’re twelve. Why are you?”

“Yeah, well, I helped fight You-Know-Who in my first year." 

Ginny curled her fingers into her dark robes. She had had to throw away the ones she’d killed the roosters in. She’d never learned Mum’s cleaning spells well enough for that. 

"You could, too,” Ron said. The stain on the ceiling kept spreading, white plaster going dark. “You did. Fight You-Know-Who, your first year.” Water dripped onto her forehead. 

“How?” she said. “I helped him. Tom was in my head, my hands– He was–" 

"You tried to tell people.”

“I should’ve made them listen,” she said. 

“You can’t make people listen,” said Ron. 

“What can I do, then?” she said. 

“Wake up,” he said. “Wake up, wake up, come on, Ginny, wake up, Harry why is she so cold.”

-

“I’m so scared, Mum,” she said. The tea was steaming but her hands were shaking against cold ceramic. “I think I’ve been hurting people." 

-

"You’ve always been able to tell us apart,” said George. The leaves on the trees rustled behind him. “We appreciate that, you know? Like, there’s some pranks we can’t play with you around, but, still, it’s nice." 

-

"You can go,” Percy said, kindly, and Ginny shivered and shivered. “You’ve always wanted to. You’ve been dreaming about running all your life. Just taking a broom and going." 

-

Apple blossoms filled the air. Dry grass tickled her cheek, the curve of her calf. Branches cut through the sky– blue, broad, endless. She could feel cold, rotting water seeping into her robes, her socks, swallowing her hands. 

-

Bang. The ghoul in the attic was hitting pipes again. Hissing. Shouts. 

-

Bang. Swinging his feet, knocking his heels against the table legs, Fred sat on the rickety table in the broom shed. He trimmed the stray broken twigs from the tail of his Cleansweep, whistling, and he didn’t look up. 

The door of the shed hung open behind Ginny, the sun at her back, the smell of apple blossoms in the air. 

"If you’re going to steal our brooms,” Fred said. “You could at least help with maintenance, you know." 

"Why are you the last one?” she said. He had stopped whistling, but the sound kept going, ricocheting off the walls. “Why weren’t you with George?”

“We don’t do everything together,” said Fred. He looked up from the broom and he was smiling. “He’s going to do a lot of things without me, one day.”

“Where am I?” she said. “What is this? This isn’t home." 

"Isn’t it?” Fred said. He was smiling and she wanted him to stop. “You see, Ginny, you get a choice. Not everyone gets a choice, but you do. This is a place where people wait,” he said. “This is a place where they get to decide. To go forward or to go back." 

"What if I don’t want to go back?”

“Then you take one of these brooms, Gin, and you just go.” He stood up, holding the broom loosely in his hand. “You used to dream about it, remember? When no one was paying attention to you, or when they were paying too much, or when Ron broke your favorite porcelain doll. You thought about sneaking out here, and taking a broom, and just going. The first time you snuck out here and stole my broom, that’s what you meant to do. Run away. Find a circus, or an adventure, a new life.”

“But I came back." 

He shrugged. "You ran out of the cookies you’d packed. And it got cold." 

"It’s getting colder,” she said. “Fred, I’m so cold." 

"You won’t get cold, if you go. You won’t run out of anything.”

“What’ll I find?” The sky out the window was blue. It went forever. 

“I don’t know, kiddo. Not yet.”  

-

Bill was brushing her hair in the orchard. It didn’t hurt, but she knew it should. She tipped her head back. The sky was blue. She let him hold the weight of her skull in his two big hands, his rings digging into her scalp. 

Charlie was telling her about dragons. Percy was picking lint off her shoulder and telling her to get some sleep. George was picking dead leaves off the apple tree and dropping them on her head. 

Ron laid on his back in his bedroom and water dripped down from the ceiling. The ghoul was shrieking, the pipes were hissing. The stain spread and spread and she watched it go. She couldn’t lift her head. 

-

“You have a choice,” Arthur said. He had oil on his cheek from fixing a car he swore he never meant to drive. 

“It’s getting colder." 

"I know, baby." 

-

The handle of Fred’s broom was trapped between them, digging into her ribs, bruising her collarbone. She twisted her hands in the back of his shirt and buried her face in the front of it. Fred was taller than he should be. His chin was bristly with a beard he shouldn’t be able to grow this well, not yet. 

"I miss you,” she said. “You’re going to leave." 

"Are you?” he said. 

She gripped the back of his shirt tight. She could smell the orchard through the open door. She was crying. Her tears were the only warm things in the whole world. “No,” she whispered. 

“It won’t be easy,” Fred said, his chin pressed to the top of her head, because he was taller, he was so much taller than he should be. She cried and the stain spread through his shirt. “But it will be worth it." 

-

Apple blossoms and old stone. Snakes in the dry grass. This was where she learned to fly. She had taught herself. 

"Wake up,” said Ron. “Harry, why is she so cold? Wake up, Ginny, you’ve got to wake up." 

The blue sky was cut into a hundred shattered pieces. 

Gryffindor is laughing so loudly that strangers stare at you. It’s playing truth or dare at three in the morning. It’s running around like crazy people with your lover. It’s catching fireflies on a warm summer night. It’s complimenting a stranger’s crazy hair color and feeling so good when they smile. Gryffindor is hurling toilet paper over someone’s yard then laughing so hard it hurts. It’s standing up to a childhood bully. It’s unhealthy amounts of candy and fiery red sunsets. Gryffindor is being an adrenaline junkie and trying to do what’s right and getting back up after being knocked down .

Ravenclaw is 3am conversations about the meaning of life. It’s having a small close knit circle of friends who would die for each other. It’s longing to touch your lover’s soul. It’s googling pictures of llamas in tuxedos when you actually got online for a research paper. It’s feeling an instant bond with a stranger who’s wearing a band or tv show t-shirt. It’s being quirky and not caring. Ravenclaw is drinking coffee at 11pm. It’s effortlessly acing classes that you’re interested in. It’s dusty sheet music and a starry night sky. Ravenclaw is being obsessed with a certain book or show and pouring your soul into your work and expressing yourself creatively.

This is such an important relationship lesson, here, and I don’t ever see it talked about:

At the beginning of OotP, Harry has endured several traumas. The child has a lot on his shoulders. Who wouldn’t be a mess? 

Ron and Hermione know this and they spend chapters exercising patience, enduring the brunt of his emotional outbursts. Hermione lets him rant, even though his temper makes her cry. They flinch, but they let him carry on. And they are sympathetic for weeks. Even half a page before this incident, Hermione is actively trying to console harry.

Then, here, they were lightly bickering–no different than they’ve ever done–and Harry snaps.  He snaps, and he crosses a boundary.

And that’s what’s important here. Harry has every right to be a mess, yes, but his friends still have a right to establish boundaries in how he treats them. 

“Don’t take your temper out on us.”

Ron asserts this, and backs Hermione up. Ron shuts Harry’s arguments down. He communicates that it’s not their fault that this is happening to Harry, and this is not an acceptable way to treat them.

So, like many of you here one of my favourite things about tumblr’s HP fandom is the RPing. Like honestly it’s bloody amazing and I’m in awe of people who can make themselves look like half a dozen different characters and do it so well.

I wrote this piece, inspired by the lovely @asktheboywholived and @siriusly-not-over-remus and one particular post which you can see here. If you haven’ t seen the Dark!Sirius gifs yet (incredibly unlikely as it is, that you haven’t, I know), they’re some of my favourite so go take a look.

It was supposed to be another mini-fic, but as you can see it took on a life of it’s own. Anyway I hope you all like it, and I’ve done the hardwork of those wonderful RP-ers justice.

-

‘Mother was pleased.’

His body was screaming at him, but Sirius refused to be sick, refused to let his body betray him before he did what he had to do.

But those three words tumbling around in his mind were not making it easy.

‘I did this for myself! I wanted this!’

Regulus. The Heart of the Lion and one of the brightest stars of the night sky. But not the brightest, no. That honour fell to Sirius, the Dog Star.

He hadn’t realised how much Regulus had let that bother him, until now. Now when it was too late to do anything about it, but take the most drastic measure. His pride choked in his throat. He’d never been a follower, never saw the appeal in servitude and despite the best efforts of the genetics of his incestuous little family he’d never been as sadistic as Bella. The lure of power and cruelty didn’t call to him the same way it did to her.

And to think, mother had wanted them to marry, before she’d gotten tangled up with that troglodyte she called ‘Husband’. Thank Merlin she’d married. He would have avada’d himself first.

“Good evening cousin,” a high, scratchy voice spoke from the darkness of the little street Sirius stood in. Speak of the Devil…and something much worse appears, he thought. “I’m surprised you came. Weren’t you just so above our… ‘little sycophantic mission’ was it?”

She stood, robe open and fluttering, and flanked by the Lestrange brothers. He wondered idly, if Rabastan shared their marriage bed too, since he seemed to hound their every move.

“We do not keep Him waiting.”

She disappeared around the corner, and Sirius followed.

As he stepped into the darkness, what little colour remained in the dying hours of the day bled away. There was no warmth here, no light; just the clip, clip of Bella’s heels in front and the gaping maw of this endless little alleyway behind.

“In here.”

It took a moment for Sirius to make out Bella’s form. She blended in so well with the shadows, but eventually he could see her, pointing inside a rickety door that had been left slightly ajar.

Was he fuck going first.

“After you, Bella dear.” He even used his best Orion Tone.

It took her a moment but she complied. Rudolph followed after leaving only Rabastan at his back. Sirius could ease his shoulders. He remembered Rab at school. Worst defensive work of the House. He reckoned he was on par with that fat little fellow that used to hang off Potter.

He hadn’t known what to expect, really. Some more winding, labyrinthine passageways. Maybe a rat scuttling over his boots (which would have been promptly kicked into a wall), but whatever ever it was, it had been a little…more.

The door was a glamour, obviously, and he was led straight into a clean, nearly clinical room of dark wood and marble and an enormous hearth of green flame, a long, elegant table in the middle of it all. Masked faces stared at him and Sirius had to at least credit Bella with not even attempting to fool him. Honestly, did Lucius not realise there were only so many wizards with dark sympathies and the same ridiculous hair? Idiot.

“Welcome, Sirius,” a hiss crept down from the head of the table. It put his hair on end, set his nerves alight, made his muscles coil, ready and waiting. “I have been looking forward to meeting you. I’ve heard so much about you, you see.”

From Bella. From Lucius. From Reggie. Sirius got the message loud and clear. He was in the middle of a web determined to entrap him.

He took a breath and he hoped it didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. “All good things, I hope.”

“Do you?”

Bella grinned, Lucius shifted and Sirius paused as he was reminded that this…thing whatever he was, was not a fool.

“No.”

And then the most horrible thing happened. It smiled at him. It was pleased with him.

Rabastan had conjured a seat and moved to place it next to his brother, but Voldemort raised a hand to stop him. “Here, if you will, Rabastan. Let young master Black sit next to me.”

Bella glared and almost looked like she would protest, and really, Sirius would have been all too happy to give up his place for her, but there it was – looking at him, waiting for his obedience. And so he obeyed, and as he sat to Voldemort’s right he made sure to put on his best Black Heir affectations. Chin raised, mouth near smirking, body language strong, controlled and confident. All the things he didn’t feel as those cold eyes scrutinised him.

“I would happily welcome you into our ranks, Sirius. Your cousins have proven valuable assets to me.” Bella was mad enough to do anything he asked and Narcissa had added a considerable fortune to Malfoy’s burgeoning wealth when they married, he meant. “And your brother, though young, seems most eager to please. By all accounts, you come from a fine tradition.”

He had to remind himself that there was a time and a place to scoff, and this was. not. it.

“And yet, something troubles me.”

Sirius leaned back and looked as close to its eyes as he could. “Then allow me to put your mind at ease.”

Oh sweet Merlin, it laughed. Sirius would be hearing that sound in his nightmares.

“Oh I see what they mean about you.” It leaned forward, more eager now. “But I did hear tell, young man, that there was a time when you were not so willing to join our cause. And yet here you are.”

“Here I am.”

He didn’t think it was possible but that voice got a little quieter and a little colder. “Why have you come to us now?”

He swallowed. “Does…does it matter?”

It touched him. It wrapped its cord like fingers around his wrist and held true when Sirius couldn’t hide his flinch and recoiled. “Yes, my dear boy, it matters very much.”

He could feel that vomit trying to betray him again. Gods, shit, what was he doing?! He was out of his depth here, surrounded by people he loathed at worst and was indifferent about at best. He was going to war, going to act in Its name and get a nice little tattoo for his troubles – a sure fire ticket into Azkaban if they lost, if not straight to the Dementors. And all for what? Because of stupid, idiot kids who couldn’t run their own lives? Because of some blind little sheep? Because of Regu-

Because of Regulus. Because of Regulus.

All of it. For Regulus.

“I am the heir,” he said at last. “To the most powerful family here. I do not allow lesser relatives perform mediocre work in the family name.” He sneered at Bella who matched it perfectly. “It’s gone on long enough. They need to be shown how to do things…properly.”

It stroked his hand. It was stroking his hand and he had to clamp down on the trembling climbing its way up his leg.

“Truly? Your cousin seems very capable…”

Bella preened and smiled smugly around the rest of the congregation and good lord did she just flutter her eyelashes at that? Sirius didn’t even try to keep the contempt from his voice. “Sycophants are never very creative. Any fool can crucio someone.”

“True,” it agreed. “Too true. Sirius,” it called to be looked at again. “I believe I may have pleased you already. I have an opportunity for you to instruct them already.”

Suddenly the room felt a lot colder “Y-You do?”

“I do.” Two cloaks lurking against the wall swept from the room at those word and the silence stretched on. No one spoke. No one moved. No one looked at him. Well, no one save Bella and that. Sirius could practically feel his skin crawling with their anticipation, infectious and toxic and he knew it was going to kill him sooner or later.

The cloaks returned, heaving something slumped between them. Lank blond hair. T-shirt bloodied and torn and a skirt so badly crumpled it was near indecent. They threw her down and she landed at all horrible angles and Sirius couldn’t take his eyes off her.

He knew her.

She’s been in his year at school. She’d been vivacious, fierce and funny. She’d been a Gryffindor. And she’d been a lot of fun in empty classrooms.

Marlene McKinnon.

Bella giggled. “She’s a member of that sad little order. We got the rest of her family and left them there for Dumbledore’s pets to find. But we kept this one. Useless though, she can’t tell us anything. I think we broke her. She wasn’t anywhere near as durable as those Longbottoms,” she pouted.

“Enervate!” Marlene coughed and spluttered and choked as Voldemort revived her. She caught sight of the cloaks and scrambled backwards over her bruised limbs Sirius noticed she was dragging her foot and her breaths were shallow. She was shaking, but she kept her eyes on them the whole time. Sirius nearly smiled.

Until a pale, knotted hand gestured that Sirius should step up.

And the fucking world hated him because when she looked at him he saw she wasn’t too far gone to recognise him.

“S-S- Bla-ck?”

“’Lo McKinnon.”

“I-I-n, no. No. You – I th-ought that you – not. I thought-“

He wanted to stop her shaking. He wanted to tell her that no, she hadn’t been wrong about him. He wanted to take her to fucking St Mungo’s and blast this room apart.

But he couldn’t. He had to make it worse, if anything.

“You thought wrong, McKinnon.” He touched the skin on her wonky ankle.

That defiant little glint came back to her eyes. “Are – are y-you goi-ng to, to-“

“Torture you? Like they did?”

She stared him down and he shook his head.

“No. No I’m not going to do that. I t-think-“ Sirius took a steadying breath and felt his eyes burn at what he was about to do. “I think I’d like to do something else…”

Sirius never forgot what he did that night, when he killed that piece of himself that made him different from the rest of his miserable little family. He would always hear those awful, awful sounds he’d ripped from Marlene’s throat, from the core of her broken little body when she’d thought she’d had no voice left. In the end, they hadn’t needed the Killing Curse. Sirius had taken her above and beyond what she could handle and her body mercifully, finally gave in.

When it was over, Sirius barely even registered a serpentine arm slithering over his shoulders and that same hand that had stroked him earlier clasping his shoulder. Like his father had used to do when he proud of him.

“Oh, Sirius,” it had nearly gushed. “We are so pleased to have you with us.”

For Regulus. For Regulus. For Regulus, he chanted as he left that room, alone. For Regulus, he spat through his teeth when he tried not to get lost in the darkness of the alley. For Regulus, he choked as his body finally gave in and he retched and heaved and vomited against the wall. For Regulus, he sobbed as he walked home, unable to banish those images burned in his mind.

For Regulus. All of it, for Regulus.

Specifically, I like to think that there was some upper year who figured it out because they paid really close attention in class. Like, not just “I have OWLs this year and I need to get good grades” close attention, but “Prof. Lupin is so nice and so funny and he has such a nice smile, and wow, I am really gay” close attention.

Let’s all be real, here, Remus Lupin probably holds the all-time Hogwarts record for “Most embarrassing adolescent daydreams and adolescent sexual/romantic awakenings caused”. There was a lot of math being done about age differences by students, but to no avail, because Remus was entirely oblivious to everything, because they’re all children.

That student just wanted to ask some questions about the latest assignment, is obviously genuinely interested in the subject matter, and all that lashes-fluttering was them probably just having something in their eye. He asked and they said so. (And then they promptly turned bright red and screamed pure embarrassment into a couch cushion later when their friend asked how it went. “HE THOUGHT I HAD SOMETHING IN MY EYE, SAM.”) 

The result of this student figuring out Prof. Lupin was a werewolf did not result in a panic about their teacher being a werewolf, though. At least, not the sort of panic that Snape might have expected.

“I read that the transformation is really painful, that’s so awful,” says Oliver Beamish, doodling hearts on his Defense essay again. “Do you think he’s okay? He always looks so sick. I mean, he’s so handsome, but he looks ill. I want to smother him and feed him soup, is that weird?”

“Yes, Beamish, that’s really quite queer,” Linda Peakes says, even though she knows that he isn’t actually listening. Replying makes her feel better, though, for having to sit through this and having Oliver Lupin written over every bit of spare parchment that comes into proximity of her friend.

“Is he eating alright? I read that werewolves should eat more before a full moon to help with how exhausting the transformation is - and there was something about filling the bloody and animalistic hunger, but that sounded like bullshit. Do you think he’s getting enough sleep? He should get more sleep; if full moons are really so awful, he definitely needs it. I don’t know if I could take that, though, since he already looks so handsome with rings under his eyes. I want him happy, but I’m not sure I could cope.”

“I already can’t cope; you’ve become a lunatic,” says Linda, weighing the benefits between having a competent Defense teacher and having to listen to Beamish wonder about how to care for his imaginary werewolf boyfriend.

Lunatic, indeed.

She is a master of humor.

Sadly, she has plans for her school path and career track, so the competent teacher side wins. Also, Hufflepuff House took a poll and he’s been rated the nicest and most well-liked teacher after Sprout and Flitwick; she’s pretty sure most of their house would cry if he left, and a heartbroken Beamish might be worse than a mooning one. She’s not willing to risk it.

Heh, mooning. She’ll have to remember that one too.

(She begins plotting the death of Severus Snape when Remus Lupin is fired. She has plans, damn it. Also, so many puns ruined.)

“The famous lightning scar has company: Potter is sporting a nasty cutover his right cheekbone…”

The 2014 Quidditch World Cup wasnot, truly, a holiday for any of the Potters. (Well, except maybe for thekids.) A few days sightseeing around Argentina, falling in love with thecountry (as they did with every country they visited), then on to the campsite aheadof the final match: Bulgaria versus Brazil. Ginny had to work reporting for theProphet, and quite a few other papersworldwide, too. Her writing was recognised as some of the best in the business;she didn’t merely report on what had happened in a match, she made people feellike they were really there, watching the game with her. Her interviews werejust as prized - she was able to draw out confessions from her subjects whilststill keeping things light and human. When she’d played Quidditch herself,first for the Harpies then for England, she’d been regarded as one of the bestplayers in the world. But in the few years she’d been working for the paper,she’d won more prizes—and been more proud of them—than in all her time as aChaser.

Today, she was interviewing ViktorKrum, ahead of the final match in two days’ time. His coming out of retirementhad shocked the world, and no one had found out the reason behind the decision.Yet. Harry had no doubt that Ginnywould find out what he was up to. Harry was, ostensibly, working in themorning, too, but on nothing so exciting as Ginny’s assignment. He was,however, working in the same place as her for the first time since theirHogwarts days, and this was proving mightily distracting. It was verychallenging to get anything done knowing she was close by.

He risked another glancepitchwards, and saw the two of them talking together. Krum appeared to beoffering Ginny his broom, and… Harry held his breath. He hadn’t seen Ginnyfly properly for a few years now, and he missed it. Sure, she knocked around inthe garden with the kids, and sometimes flew to work in London, if the weatherwas nice but she hadn’t flown professionally, that he’d seen, in such a long,long time. She appeared to be declining, at first, perhaps out of politeness,but Krum insisted and, even at this distance, Harry could see her resolveweakening. She accepted the broom from him, hovered on it just above groundlevel, toes skimming the grass, then launched off so fast she was literallyjust a blur. She swooped and dived, turning and rolling and–