The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Guesswork and Plans

"OH!" 

Sirius was startled awake by the shouted exclamation, flipping over in the bed, and hitting the carpet in a particularly clumsy belly-flop with an UMFPH! He scrambled for his wand, snatching it up from where it had landed beside him, and leaped to his feet, braced and ready to cast a spell, jumpily aiming every which way. "What is it? Where is it? What's happened?!" he gasped.

Peter was standing up on his bed, clutching the map and the parchment that he'd been working with, his eyes wide and straw-coloured hair all stuck up in odd places from where he'd been tugging it as he worked in deep concentration. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," he muttered, and he sat down quickly, bouncing on the mattress and held the chart and the parchment up for Sirius, "Look, look here!" 

Sirius stared at the strange runes and scribbles across the page. "What is it? I can't read that shite, Wormtail!"

Peter threw them both down on James's bed, which stood between Sirius and Peter, and he hurriedly dragged his fingers across the chart. "See this here, look, right there - oh it's all right there!"

"WHAT IS RIGHT THERE?" Sirius yelled.

"Sirius?" Remus's voice was a groggy murmur.

"Go back to sleep, Moon-moon," Sirius said gently, "I'm sorry I woke you." Remus rolled over, having only barely awakened to begin with, and promptly went back to snoring. He looked at Peter, then, more quietly, "What's right there?"

"The Good Wolf," Peter stammered, "The Good Wolf is going to die."

Sirius stared at Peter, then looked at Remus, then back to Peter.

Peter was shaking, "The Good Wolf is going to fight Greyback and he's going to die because of it." He looked up at Sirius, tears in his eyes, "That's what the Fates say."

"Fuck the fates!" Sirius declared. "We don't even know who the Good Wolf is, it might not even be Remus."

"Who else is going to fight Greyback here at Hogwarts?!" Peter demanded.

Sirius stared at Peter for several long moments.

"I asked where the fight would take place and it says at the castle - well Hogwarts is the only castle I know of where Fenrir Greyback is getting Wolfsbane potion from and is home to a Good Werewolf." Peter jabbed his finger at Remus's slowly rising-and-falling back as he slept deeply once again. He turned back to Sirius. 

Sirius's jaw quivered and he went 'round the bed quickly, blocking Remus from Peter, as though this would guard him against the vision that Peter had been given for the future. "You're a liar," Sirius said thickly, "You're lying. There's nothing in the Fates about my Moony and that disgusting Greyback, there's nothing there about it."

"Except there is - Remus is the good wolf, obviously, and Greyback --"

"Will fucking die before he'll lay a hand on my Moony if it's the last bleeding thing I do," Sirius growled.

Peter's eyes widened. "But --"

Sirius glared at him.

Peter swallowed back whatever protest he'd been about to make and nodded, deciding that he'd tell James later on because if anyone would listen to him - it would be James Potter.

"I don't know Wormtail, it seems kind of like... guesswork to me," James said, turning over the Horary Chart.

Peter shook his head, "There's no guessing about it. See here, that's Jupiter and over here's the moon... and..."

"Alright, but what's that got to do with Remus?" James asked, squinting at the chart with confusion.