The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

You Smell Like Dog

You Smell Like Dog

Evans,
Happy Christmas. I know you're cross with me, but I also know how hard this Christmas will be for you. I wanted you to know I'm wishing you the best. Try to see beauty in the twinkle lights, even if they shine through tears. Your dad would want you to be happy.
All my love,
James Potter

Lily stood in her bedroom holding the note, which had been scrawled inside a holiday card with a picture of a cat on the front with a holiday wreath 'round its head. The card had come with Bubo only moments before. It was early on the morning of 24 December and outside there was snow falling thick and white, shimmering in the sunlight. Bubo sat on top of her Hogwarts trunk, ruffling her feathers and looking at Lily with wide lantern-like eyes. Lily had invited the owl inside to warm-up from the nasty cold and Bubo looked grateful for it, even though Lily had no owl treats to give her. She watched, her head turning in that funny way owls do, as Lily sank into her desk chair. She opened a drawer and pulled out a quill and a bit of parchment and she wrote:

Thank you Potter. Happy Christmas to you, too.

She stopped there and stared at the letters, unsure what else to write. That she was sorry about Severus turning up and ruining everything? That she wished things could've gone differently, that she wished she knew what to do, who to believe, and how to let go of a past she was afraid to let go of? Especially in a time like this, when her dad was gone and everything else was so uncertain. Severus was the closest thing to steady in her wizarding life. And yeah it'd been up and down and up and down with Severus, but he was always there when she needed him. But then so hadn't the stag. But if James had done all that to Severus -- but then if he hadn't... Oh there was just so many ifs and so many what to dos and Lily's heart and head ached with it all and she felt driven to tears by it.

She folded the note before tears could dot the page and she pushed it into an envelope and spellotaped it shut. "Here, Bubo," she said, giving the note to the owl. "Whenever you're ready to go back to him, there's his letter." She wished there was a way to envelope her feelings into it and let James feel them all, maybe then he'd understand.

Bubo took the note importantly in her beak and she fluttered to the window and Lily opened it up and watched as the owl flew off - a brown speck in the white that filled the sky. She stared after it until she'd disappeared.

"What's your favorite magical creature you've ever had, Mr. Scamander?" Regulus asked. He was sitting in the chair opposite Newt in the stables as Newt was flipping through books on aconite and its properties, comparing it to another textbook of ingredients and rubbing his chin.

Newt looked up, his eyes focusing on Regulus as though he'd only just realized the boy was there. "What now?"

Regulus had been sitting there for over an hour in silence after Newt Scamander had signed his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He'd even drawn a bowtruckle next to his name. Regulus had then sat staring at the autograph and flipping through the book for sometime. He'd read all the way to the entry on Dragons before he looked up at the magizoologist across from him. They'd both been so absorbed in their reading material that the time had passed, barely noticed.

"What's your favorite of all the magical creatures?" Regulus repeated his question.

"That's... thats very hard, I'm not - not prone to favoritism, usually." He paused, "Well, I was accused once. Because of Pickett." Newt patted his coat pocket, "Very shy in his old age. Used to pop out anytime. Lately he only comes out if he knows its just me and Teeny." He opened the pocket and peeked in, "You ought to be m-making friends now and again, there, Pickett." He let the pocket close and mused, "And there's - there's Dougal, my demiguise. And - and I have a funny bird - he - he doesn't do much, but I like him. He's funny. He's - he's the only creature on this earth that'll eat the meatpie Tina makes. I know this for certain as I've tried to feed my portions of it to - to the other creatures before when she's - she's not, uh, looking, but not a soul besides Hockley will touch it. That's his - his name -- Hockley. He's a Great Auk, I think. Technically a, uh, a muggle bird, but his species has been extinct for a hundred years and he's still alive so I, uh, I have reason to believe he's not really what he looks like he is. I haven't ever found anything else that's - that's like him though. So, uh, we may never know. I'm quite fond of my Niffler, too, though she's a little bugger. Steals anything she can get her - her hands on so long as it's shiny."