The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Mudblood's Address

The Mudblood's Address

"So let me get this straight - you and Severus Snape go to a detention and you end up saving the life of the divination teacher?" Remus looked positively awestruck as he clutched his pillow and looked over across Peter and James's beds to where Sirius sat, unbuttoning his school uniform shirt. His tie was flung over the end of the bed. "You literally saved a professor's life."

"All in a day's work," Sirius answered. "We just ran down there, saw what was wrong, and I run over to Severus's potions kit and grabbed the bezoar, and --"

"How'd you know to use a bezoar?" asked Peter, staring at Sirius from his desk, eyes wide.

"Slughorn told us about bezoars in first year, don't you remember?" Sirius said, omitting the fact that he himself did not remember.

James shook his head, "Blimey, you're good, mate."

"I know," Sirius agreed, grinning.

"You should be able to get off of Divination homework for the rest of the term!" James said.

"Wait that means I have to do it all alone," Peter said, looking at Sirius imploringly. "You'll still help me, won't you?"

Remus said, "Did Dumbledore or Veigler say how long Professor Vablatsky was going to be at the hospital wing?"

Sirius shook his head. "They didn't. But she walked out of the room okay with Pomfrey, so it shouldn't be too long..."

"What was the poison again?" asked James.

"Banesberry," Sirius said. "Apparently it's native to America and it can kill you pretty fast. Makes your heart stop up."

Peter looked nervous, "Who would want to kill Professor Vablatsky?" he asked, "She's so nice."

"Dunno," Sirius said. "She said the tea came by owl - said it was from Madam Puddifoot's."

"Odd," James said.

"Very," agreed Sirius.

The excitement hashed out, they all got ready for bed, putting on their pyjamas, though they stayed up pretty late even so eating animal crackers and making terrific zoo sounds at one another, laughing hysterically when Remus pretended to bite into a wolf cookie and then talked in his regular voice. Peter did a couple elephants and Sirius a tiger. The best was James, who choked on a dolphin shape and made squeaky shrieks for several moments as he coughed on cookie crumbs stuck in his lungs.

Next morning they made their way down to the Great Hall from Gryffindor Tower. The first session of Divination was cancelled for the day - Frank Longbottom and the other fourth years that were supposed to be in the class were very interested to hear what had gone on the day before and it seemed within absolute seconds the whole Great Hall was talking about how Sirius Black had saved Professor Vablatsky with his brilliant bezoar trick.

Severus Snape came up late from the Slytherin common room, having stayed up a lot of the night reading about Amortentia and how best to administer it, and he yawned as he walked into the Great Hall to the table. Evan Rosier and Dimitri Goyle were leaned close together, talking, as Severus lowered himself onto the bench opposite them, stretching and reaching for a warm biscuit. Evan looked up. "So Vablatsky almost died in your detention, huh?"

Severus had been hoping that word wouldn't get around much about what had happened. The less talk it got at Hogwarts, the less likely it was that the Dark Lord would find out what he'd done. Severus shrugged.