The New Marauder

Thirty

"Why do I feel like I just had all of my life's choices examined with a fine-tooth comb?" Sirius asked his wife, who was still processing the interrogation they had just endured. "Not even just my life; they asked questions about my family, ancestors who've been dead for a long time."
    Joanna understood that MACUSA had a reputation for being the strictest magical government. Her experiences playing International Quidditch had given her some insight, but she hadn't realized how thorough they could be. They had kept them in that room for three hours, bombarding them with questions after explaining laws and procedures. Essentially, they were restricted from using noticeable magic in public, especially around Muggles. The revelation that most, if not all, magic was actively tracked to ensure Muggles remained unaware of the magical community left her pondering how such enchantments could have saved lives during Voldemort's reign in Britain.
    The unease lingered as MACUSA officers repeatedly implied that Orion, Sirius's niece, was their child. Rumors had circulated about Joanna and Sirius having a child before Voldemort's downfall, but that part of her life remained shrouded in mystery. She had accepted Sirius's explanation that his cousin had tortured her almost to madness, and healers had erased those memories to give her a fresh start.
    After the Hogwarts letter arrived, questions about Orion's parentage resurfaced. Sirius had admitted that he let slip to reporters that Orion was essentially theirs, but due to Joanna's health issues, they had allowed his brother to adopt Regulus's child instead. Despite moving past it, the topic still unsettled Joanna, particularly because of James and Lily's reactions whenever it was mentioned.
    "Are we almost done?" June asked, pulling Joanna out of her thoughts.
    "Almost, sweetling," Joanna replied, running her fingers through her daughter's midnight hair. "They arranged for us to take a portkey to their Seattle office, then we'll Floo to the Quileute Reservation."
    "Why so many places?" Jamie asked, looking up from an Ilvermorny pamphlet.
    "That's a good question," Joanna mumbled, perturbed by the number of steps involved. "Possibly because this country is so big."
    "I didn't think about that," her son remarked, pulling out another pamphlet labeled "Fun Facts of America you should know."
    "How many of those did you pick up?" Sirius asked, smiling warmly.
    "Not too many, possibly—"
    "He took one of each," June interjected, with a playful eye roll.
    Joanna chuckled softly, recognizing Jamie's eagerness to learn, while June took after her father. Despite inheriting her impossibly good memory, both children had different interests; Jamie loved books, much like Joanna, and she hoped he might end up in Ravenclaw when he attended Hogwarts in a few years.
    "They looked interesting," Jamie defended, giving his sister a semi-hurt look.
    To avoid a potential argument they knew that was coming, Joanna and Sirius positioned themselves between the siblings to create some distance.
    "They do look interesting. Mind if I take a look at one?" Joanna asked her son, knowing how to distract him while Sirius regaled their daughter with tales of his glory days at Hogwarts.
    They managed to keep the children occupied until they reached a small area with boxes upon boxes of trinkets. Homey-looking fireplaces lined one wall, while ten desks, four of them manned by people in dark red and silver robes, dominated the center.
    "Excuse me," Sirius said to the witch sitting closest to them, flashing his charming smile. "We were sent here from the visitor's center. Eugene said that—"
    "Name and destination," the stout, stern woman cut him off with a frown.
    "Sirius Black, Seattle, Washington," he answered, slightly offended that his charm wasn't as effective as usual.
    As he finished, a small parchment appeared in front of her through a tiny cloud of smoke. "Two adults, two underage," she mumbled, looking it over before standing to retrieve a battered book from a pile of rubbish. Joanna and Sirius watched, confounded, as she placed it on the table and murmured a spell while tapping it with her wand.
    "Each of you take a corner; it will be leaving in approximately one minute," she informed the family in a business-like tone before returning to her desk to finish her report.
    Whether the woman had a poor sense of time or they took the full minute to reach the table, once the family touched the book, Joanna felt the all-too-familiar tug behind her navel before the floor fell from under her.
   
        ~*~*~*~ Hogwarts ~*~*~*~
   
    "Hagrid?" "Professor Kettleburn?" Fred and I called out, searching the Care of Magical Creatures Hut for any signs of adults. Finding no sign of life other than a worn suitcase by the Professor's desk, I took a seat on one of the benches beside the fireplace.
    Despite Gemma and Charlie's intentions for us to be punished during these detentions, I couldn't help but want to thank them. I wasn't lying when I told Professor McGonagall that it had been a learning opportunity. So far, we'd had five or six trips into the forest to either help the Centaurs or look for potion ingredients, which was cool on its own, or helped Professor Kettleburn with corralling creatures, planning his lessons, and learning how to treat the injured ones he and Hagrid had kept safe until they could be released again. Honestly, I might have found my favorite subject within Hogwarts, and I'm not even allowed to take it yet.
    The last one was my favorite, not only because we got to help innocent creatures but also because we learned stuff out of it too. Like earlier this week when we were out looking for unicorn hairs, beetles, and other potion ingredients for Professor Snape, we came across a tree that looked like something had beaten it up. Hagrid said that it was probably the centaurs using it for target practice and tried to leave it at that. But when I walked closer, I noticed a group of injured Bowtruckles. Cedric and I managed to convince Hagrid and the twins to help us take them to Professor Kettleburn after about fifteen minutes of pleading, which is how the lessons truly started to begin with.
    "You think they're doing okay?" Cedric asked, looking into the open tank holding those same Bowtruckles.
    "They've got to be," I answered, reaching in and petting my favorite one I named Groot, who still had the tiniest sling holding his arm up.
    "I wonder how many wands Mr. Ollivander got from the tree," Fred mused, picking at the small baskets of treats before tossing a few to the Professor's pet Amazonian Salamander that was sitting right next to the roaring fire.
    "Probably not many," I mumbled, checking on Groot and allowing him to climb up my arm, not noticing the others giving me questioning looks.
    "How do you know that?" George asked, pulling my attention away from my newest friend.
    Giving him a look, I pulled out my wand and showed it to them. "When he told me about how special my wand is, I spent weeks researching Wandlore. Like Mr. Ollivander said, it's not every day a Rowan wood wand with a Horned Serpent core picks a witch or wizard." I explained with a haughty laugh before clearing my throat and continuing. "When a tree produces magical properties, Bowtruckles are drawn to them. And when inhabited and in good health, they may allow the Wandmaker to take enough for one to two wands. The most ever recorded was, I believe, five, and that was because the tree was found in the Redwood forest of Northern California back in nineteen sixty. However, the Bowtruckles only allow a minimal amount of wood to be taken to keep the tree healthy, but that's only if the Wandmaker is worthy in their eyes. Nevertheless, that tree was a great tree; it was also too damaged. I would be surprised if Mr. Ollivander was able to harvest enough wood for one wand, and that's even if whatever core he selected would bond with the wood." I summarized, tossing my wand back and forth between palms as I thought about what he said about my own wand while listening to Groot chatter excitedly in my ear. I couldn't understand him, but it made me feel good that he trusted me enough to climb all over me.
    "Ori, your brain is something else, I swear," Fred mumbled, giving me an awed smile.
    "It truly is, Mr. Weasley," a warm, familiar voice agreed, causing us to look towards the desk.
    "Professor Dumbledore," Cedric gasped, taking in the Headmaster who seemed to appear out of thin air.
    "Good evening, Mr. Diggory, Mr. and Mr. Weasley, and Ms. Black. I am afraid that I seemed to have intruded on your extracurricular lessons, so to say." He grinned, giving us a knowing smile as the suitcase at his feet opened up, and a vaguely familiar straggly man with wavy hair wearing a golden scarf stepped out as if it were a normal everyday thing to do. "Ah, Newt, it is nice to see a friendly face," Dumbledore said, shaking the man's hand while Professor Kettleburn stepped out of the suitcase along with two more people—one a short man with a balding head and the other a woman with dark hair and holding a posture I knew all too well. "And you've brought Ms. Goldstein and Mr. Kowalski."
    While they took a moment to greet each other, I knew my mind should be reeling on the fact that four grown adults just climbed out of a suitcase like it was no big deal, and judging by the looks on the boys' faces and the way their eyes kept jumping back and forth between them and it, they were. But for the life of me, I couldn't help but wonder where I had heard their names before. It's like my heart froze in shock, and my mind was desperately trying to catch up onto why. Meanwhile, I was freaking out because this had never happened before. I had always had the answers, and now I was as lost as Fred was when Professor McGonagall asked him about the theories behind Gawps Law last Thursday when she saw he wasn't paying attention in class.
    Then, as his eyes met mine, it clicked harder than a sledgehammer slamming through a wall marked for demolition. "HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE NEWT SCAMANDER!" I shouted, unable to control myself.
   
        ~*~*~*~ Quileute Reservation ~*~*~*~
   
    Impatiently, Anna paced fumingly in front of the large worn fireplace of the community building on the Reservation, while Sarah, Sue, Harry, and Billy sat off to the side talking quietly. Not two hours ago, she had received a message from her chief that Orion's estranged family had landed in the visitors center of the MACUSA headquarters, looking to head here to Forks in order to talk to Charlie and the No-Maj doctor that diagnosed Ori years ago.
    "So, are we going to tell Ori about this?" Sarah asked, eyeing Anna carefully.
    "No," Anna replied, shaking her head. "With everything going on between her and Sam, on top of her finding out her shithead father visited her not long ago, she doesn't need to know," Anna continued, running her finger through her blonde hair for the umpteenth time. "I have already had to enchant every picture in our house to keep this ridiculous cover intact, and if Orion hears what we've had to do..." Anna choked out, trying to keep the tears away.
    When she had gotten the news, it also came with instructions for them to make sure that her daughter's identity was safe. In order to do that, Anna had to go through their family's home and enchant each picture one by one to hide her daughter from her actual birth mother and siblings. It was horrible; it broke Anna's heart more and more every time she changed her daughter's features in order to make sure she was so undistinguishable it looked like a stranger was celebrating with the family they built instead of the child that held her heart.
    "Hey," Sarah stood up and walked over to her friend, pulling her into a comforting hug, trying to calm her down. "We will get through this. It's one or two days, then they will be gone. Orion doesn't have to know anything we don't want her to, okay?"
    "If she were to ever find out about this, I don't know if she would ever forgive me," Anna confessed her worst fear to one of her best friends while letting the tears she had been holding back fall.
    "She won't find out about any of it," Sue took a step forward and rubbed soothing circles onto Anna's back. "We promise."
    "And when this is all over with, we will help you lift the enchantments and drink the night away while the boys watch over the children," Sarah said, making Anna smile.
    "Thank you, I just wish Charlie was here," she whispered, pulling herself together in time for a puff of smoke carrying a slip of parchment to appear in front of them.
    "Two minutes," Sue whispered, plucking the note out of the air, giving Anna a sad smile.
    Within a second, Anna straightened her back, breathing in an air of confidence while wiping any evidence of her emotions. Nodding her head, she walked over to the desk in the front of the room and leaned against it. "We can do this," she assured not only herself but everyone else in the room. "Two days max, and then they're gone for good."
    "At least they came the proper way instead of showing up on your doorstep," Billy pointed out awkwardly, making them laugh.
    "Oh god, I had almost forgotten about that," Anna chuckled, just as the fireplace ignited, lighting the room in a green hue, bringing their laughter to an abrupt end.

~ Hey guys, I had totally forgotten to mention that this fic is solely based off the books not the movies, therefore Cedric and Edward are two totally different people. I understand if that's not your cup of tea and if you need to visualize Edward as Cedric that's okay too however Orion will not see him that way. To her he will be the way Stephanie Myers describes Edward. ❤️❤️