The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Maryrose Knows

Maryrose Knows

Maryrose Jenkins had never gone into the Forbidden Forest before. She stood at the edge of it, where the grass turned to bracken and she looked back at the castle, at the lights that glowed golden in the dark, and drew a deep breath... drew her wand... and stepped into the shadows of the trees. "Lumos," she whispered, and the wand glowed, lighting the way through the trunks and branches, and Maryrose moved carefully forward, listening... her heart in her throat.

Somewhere out here was James, Lily, and Remus. Somewhere, something was happening, and she was afraid of what - afraid that they needed her help and that perhaps she hadn't been able to come quickly enough...

There was a sound - a cracking through the trees... something heavy moving in the dark... and she lowered her wand, "Nox," she whispered, and she crouched down... Suddenly, from among the branches, she spotted it. It was a huge deer - a stag, with big antlers and long, wobbly legs, stepping carefully along. She shook as she stood back up, intending to go on by it, to find where the others had gone... but at her movement, the stag stopped walking, froze in place, turning his head to look at her. His tail flicked nervously...

And then he started walking toward her.

Maryrose's fingers gripped her wand tighter, her eyes widening as the beast came toward her. She stumbled backwards, away, certain it was trying to attack her, that it was going to - to hoof her to death or something. She'd never met a deer, she didn't know if they were vicious in the wild or not, if they were something she ought to be frightened of. But this one was coming - picking up speed as it came toward her - and she was quite put off by it and she hurried to back away, and the heel of her shoes caught a tree root, hooked her foot and sent her falling to the floor of the forest, crashing her tailbone against the ground with a horrible jolt of pain and her back slammed into the bracken - and still the deer came at her and she grabbed her wand and raised it, bringing her arms up over her face as protection and she aimed the wand -- "Stupe--" she started the spell but suddenly --

The deer fell forward - tripped, it seemed, but then - no, no not tripped, it... it was changing... and... and --

She screamed.

Maryrose's scream was the sort of scream that would have excited horror film producers in Hollywood. The sort that rang and sent shivers down the spine. It echoed through the trees, loud and clear as a bell until --

James Potter's hand clamped over her mouth. "Shhhh!" he hissed, stopping her shrieking with his palm. "Bloody hell, are you trying to wake the dead with that scream?"

She stared up at him, wild eyed, trying to struggle away, and he dropped his palm from her mouth and she crawled backwards quickly, staring at him, scrambling to her feet, raising her wand to aim it at him. "What the hell was that? What the bloody hell was that?!" she cried, panicked.

"Shhhh!" he hissed again. He looked over his shoulder, the way Lily and Remus were in, and then back to Maryrose.

This wouldn't do. This wasn't how Lily Evans needed to find out about the stag. The timing was wrong. Maryrose had ruined it by coming out. Or perhaps she'd saved him from making the mistake of telling Lily. Whichever. But whatever it was, Lily didn't need to be finding them. "Quick," he whispered, come with me -- this way. I'll explain in a second. But hurry. This way." He grabbed her hand, and quickly pulled her along, leading her through the trees.

Maryrose could barely breathe. As James tugged her through the branches, holding them back so she could pass unhindered, and pointing out roots so she didn't trip, she stared at the back of his head, a the messy black hair and his broad shoulders and couldn't help but see the mental image of them bursting from the shape of a deer over and over and over in his head.