The Shoebox Project

Part Sixteen: Halloween, 1976. Four Candids, Four Scary Settings, One Prank

Part Sixteen:
Halloween, 1976. Four Candids, Four Scary Settings, One Prank, And a Lot of Terror.

***

It is a dark and stormy teatime. Remus Lupin, halfway through a heavily buttered crumpet, drops his teacup as the sound of thunder shakes Hogwarts' foundations. The cup thunks against the carpet and oozes tea outward in a little brown splotch. "Bugger," Remus mutters. He bends down to mop up the stain, napkin in one hand, the other
still clutching his crumpet possessively. To leave a heavily buttered crumpet unattended in the Gryffindor common room is to bid farewell to it forever.

"Bugger," Remus says again, only it sounds more like buh-fnrr with crumpet in his mouth.

The door bangs open. "Hallo, what's this? Crumpets?" Sirius asks. Outside lightning flashes in the gloomy sky.
"And there's extra! How kind of you to invite me to tea, Madame Lupin. I would be delighted to join you. I have even washed my fingers. Have you seen the rain?" Remus straightens to find Sirius sitting across from him, soaking wet and smelling faintly of dog. Remus tries not to look too disapproving. "Well I didn't go out when it was raining," Sirius mutters. "It sort of blew up all of a sudden. Pass the butter, will you?"
Remus sets his teacup down on the table and chances a quick glance at the sprawled tea-leaves. Better safe than
sorry, he always says. "Hm," he murmurs. "That's funny."

"What is?" Sirius blinks. "The butter? Butter is never funny, Moony. Butter is extremely serious. The absence
thereof in particular." "The tea leaves, actually," Remus explains.

"What?" inquires Sirius, who, in the absence of the butter knife, has just started smearing his crumpet across the dish like a washcloth. "Is it a Grim? Maybe it's me. I am in your future, Moony. Whenever you pick up a crumpet or try to have a quiet Halloween tea, there I will be lurking."

"No," Remus says carefully. "It's not a Grim. Have a look?" He passes it over. Sirius peers in, cheerfully stuffing his mouth with half a crumpet.

You're going to DIE, say the tea leaves.
"Huh," says Sirius, intrigued, and takes another contemplative bite. "That's new and horrible."

He shakes the cup. The leaves skitter and fall again: Blood. Blood and doom.

"It seems very clear on the doom thing," Sirius says solemnly, passing the teacup back to Remus, who examines it
worriedly. "I can see why. It knows we're both crap at Divination. You've got to be very definite if you want to get
your message through to us."

"Oh yes," Remus murmurs, tapping the cup inquiringly with his wand. "That's probably it."

"I wouldn't drink it if I were you," Sirius adds. "With the, you know, blood and all."

Three more tries and all the tea leaves have to offer is a LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, a The end is NIGH and a very cheerful Say your goodbyes NOW. "It tells me I ought to say my goodbyes now," Remus says. "Goodbye, Sirius. It was lovely knowing you. I'm even fond of the times you put chocolate in my hair while I was sleeping.

And when you made my nose sprout whiskers. And when you stole all my underwear and hid it in the lake."

"I made a lot of tadpoles happy," Sirius says. "They loved your pants. They swam in and out of the leg-holes all
day thinking what a kind soul Remus J. Lupin must have been to donate his monogrammed underwear to their
habitat. Does it really say to make your goodbyes?"