The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

Mr. Scamander's Visit

Newt Scamander carried his suitcase through Hogwarts castle, the corridors quiet and subdued. He nodded to several portraits who said hello to him as he passed by, but he did not pause to chat, as he might normally have done. Rather, he climbed the stairs, took a left, and a right, and found himself at the hospital wing. Pushing his way in, he found Poppy Pomfrey seated at her desk, mixing a cauldron as she read out of a comically large book entitled, Elixirs, Potions, Draughts and More: Recipes to Heal Your Ailments. She looked up and was surprised to see him there, "Mr. Scamander!"

"H-Hullo," Newt replied. He glanced at the door to the ward, "I h-hear that Remus L-Lupin is staying w-with you?"

"Yes," Madam Pomfrey replied. She gestured toward the potion she was working on, "This is meant to be his, actually."

Newt leaned closer, peering at the cauldron, and his eyes flickered to the book. It was a potion to alleviate depression. Newt sighed, and nodded, "Of course," he murmured. "M-might I v-visit him a wh-while?"

Madam Pmfrey nodded, "I think he would like that a good deal, Mr. Scamander." She nodded at the door, "Though if it's alone time you're looking for, you've got a long wait for it... The other four have been here since day one."

Newt chuckled and ducked through the doors to the ward.

Sure enough, there lay Remus Lupin and beside him, in the same bed, was Sirius, pressed to his side. It was so early in the morning they were still asleep. The next bed over was occupied, too, with James and Lily, Lily curled into James's wide chest, her hair pouring over both their shoulders. She clung to his shirt with a sleepy fist. And beside the bed, asleep in the chair, was Peter Pettigrew.

Peter had been most terrified by everything that took place in the library at Fallengunder. He had hidden behind the fallen table, and it seemed that Peter alone knew that the locket he had carried had not been handed to Voldmort. Regulus had tried at stealing it - again - and the locket had been intercepted, rather, during an accio across the library. So now, being afraid of what that might mean for him and the vow and what Voldemort could make him do in a room full of the Resistance and Order members, Peter had decided the best choice for him was to transform and stay out of it all.

So it was that a rat had run through the throng of jumping, shuffling, running feet during the battle, searching for someone that he recognized. It was quite hard, with the terrible vision of rat eyes - all yellowed and blurry - but he'd finally found the unmistakable shape of Sirius Black's thick Doc Martens and he'd scurried up Sirius's leg and into the warm pocket of his leather jacket as Sirius stood singing the Beegees.

Once Sirius was with Remus and they'd been still for some time, Peter found the nerve finally to come out and transform back into himself in the corridor, having snuck out of the hospital wing, where Sirius was laying on the bed with Remus, asleep. Peter hadn't told anyone how he got back to Hogwarts, and nobody had asked, either. It seemed, Peter thought, that nobody really cared what had happened to him, or noticed that he hadn't been involved in the big fight that they were all talking about, sitting around Remus's bedside in the days following, and it made him feel a bit of anger in his belly when he thought of their negligence... But nonetheless, if the Marauders were all sitting with Remus Lupin in the hospital wing, Peter was certainly going to stay with them, too, since it was much safer there than alone in the dormitory, where he feared the arrival of strange house elves with narrowed eyes and missions off to the places where the Dark Lord lurked...

Now, late morning the day after the battle at Fallengunder, Newt Scamander put down his suitcase at the foot of Remus Lupin's bed and gently shook his shoulder. Remus stirred, blinking as he opened his eyes, sunlight streaming in through the high vaulted windows, and focused on Newt's face. Remus drew a deep breath and stretched, his neck and back stiff. "Mr. Scamander?"