PEANUT ACTUALLY
PART 1
It was a lovely Saturday in September and the chaps were doing some very late spring cleaning. James was handling the broom. His broom in fact. He was lying around adding bumper stickers to his Ziggy Stardust, that was his spring cleaning. Or spring arting.
Sirius at least was tossing out old flasks of cough medicine. Tossing them out the window so they shattered on the tower roof beneath. The flasks that were not empty, he emptied into himself.
And Peter was cleaning out his nose.
Remus was the only one doing some actual cleaning, surprise there. But that was perhaps because he had the most crap to clean, what with all his tanks, cabinets, clocks, coffee grinders and lots of other stuff housing something weird. Right now he was wiping the insides of a top hat with a damp cloth.
"I'd clean some, too..," said James. "Except I don't want to take down a cobweb somewhere only for you to go nooo my thingies..."
"Same here," said Sirius. "I'd unscrew that ceiling lamp and tip the custard out, but noo my thingies..."
Remus tipped over the top hat and a kind of lump fell out. He picked it up.
"Oh no!"
"What?" said Sirius.
"I found a peanut!"
"Oh no," said James and sat up, undoing his collar buttons. "Seriously Padfoot where did you hide my antihistamine this time?"
"A peanut, so what?" said Sirius.
Remus came over to him. Whatever he was holding in his hands, it did not look like a peanut. It looked more like an unplucked chicken filet than a peanut. And the cough medicine had clearly not lost its effect because the chicken filet appeared to have a weak pulse.
"It's a peanut look!" Remus nevertheless insisted.
"Ok if you say so..," said Sirius and reached for his calendar to see just what moon the phase was in.
"It's a lovely peanut..."
"I think my throat is closing," James wheezed. "My antihistamine, anyone?"
"I hoped I would never have to see another peanut" said Remus.
"Yeah same here..," said Sirius. "That is some peanut. HELLO THERE MR PEANUT!"
"SSSSSHHHH!" Remus put his hand over the fleshy lump he called a peanut. "It's not an actual peanut!"
"How did you know that is how I talk to actual peanuts?"
"Two dwarves must have met, and this peanut must have sprung from their union. That is where peanuts come from."
"Now that is just racist, I don't care what moon the phase is in."
"Sorry, of course you wouldn't know what a peanut is."
"Uhm, I know what a peanut is, Moony. You're really not that much smarter than me, you just know more pointless crap about fairies."
"By dwarf I mean dwarf lop. Bluebell is a dwarf lop. He must have met another dwarf lop and had a litter. Sometimes in a litter of newborn dwarf lops there is a peanut. That is just what they are called, when they are born deformed and underdeveloped. Peanuts always die within a week."
"Am I to understand there is not actually a peanut in here?" James asked.
"No it was just a dwarf," Sirius replied. "Easy mistake."
James ripped off the electrode pads from his body and put his clothes back on. Then he wanted to have a look at the peanut as well.
"That is one of the most pitiful things I have ever seen," he said. "I really could go for some chicken right now."
Remus put the peanut on the table by the window. Then he went and got his axe and raised it high.
"You won't suffer any longer, Bluebell Junior," he said.
"Woah woah woah!" said Sirius, rushing to stop him.
"What?"
"Think of the mess I mean we're spring cleaning!"
"Oh right. I better go do it in the bathroom."
"Woah woah woah!" said James, rushing to take the axe while at the same time giving his calendar a quick peek. "What are you doing?"
"I'm putting it out of its misery."
"A bit harsh! You don't know it's miserable!"
"Prongs that thing isn't going to make it," said Sirius. "It's deformed, in lots of pain and it's going to die anyway, might as well not let in die in lots of agony. There is no cure, I'm guessing."
"There is always a cure."
"There is not always a cure."
"Yes there is you just have to find it."
"A week is very little time to do that. You're prolonging Bluebell Junior's suffering now return the axe so Moo can kill it!"
"Here is what I propose. Before we hack it to bits, why not talk to a vet?"
"What's the point of that? Don't you think he's looked into this already?"
"Uhm excuse me Padfoot but I wasn't talking to you!"
"Oh ok! I just don't want you to lead him astray with your pro-life crap! Please take it to bible school!"
"I'll talk to you later, ok? Just for now, do you mind if I borrow your werewolf for two seconds so I can lay out my arguments without you interfereing? Thanks!"
"So when he wants to hack baby animals he's my werewolf?"
"We already had this talk."
James got his way. Sirius had a bag of old cough medicine bottles to empty into himself.
"Man people trying to force their opinions on others are the worst!" said James. "So, have you talked to a vet?"
"Yes on the telephone," said Remus.
"That's not even real talking."
"There is no cure. Only treatments. I don't want anybody to stick tubes in Bluebell Junior if it's just to prolong the suffering."
"So you are sure it is going to die?"
"Hardly any peanuts survive."
"Aha! So some peanuts do survive!"
"It's not going to live, the chances are too minimal."
"But it might. Have a little faith! Maybe the only one suffering here is you. That peanut doesn't know anything but suffering, so how does it even know there is not-suffering? And if there is not-suffering, how can there be suffering?"
"Wow that is deep. But I just can't give it the care it needs, I'm busy."
"So find somebody who isn't busy, who can take care of him."
"But just what sort of person wouldn't be busy?"
"Somebody who has time to bake. People who are busy don't have time to bake."
He was talking about the giant boardgame keeper.
The chaps abandoned the cleaning, deciding to visit the giant boardgame keeper instead. He lived by the giant pumpkin patch, in a hut that was way too small for him.
Haggers the giant boardgame keeper was always baking wizard sized biscuits and burning them, and cooking tea in his wizard sized kettle and burning it, all on his wizard sized stove. At Hogwarts he was treated as something of an inofficial vet, a kind of giant doctor Doolittle.
The chaps took the peanut to him, and in his hands it was the size of an actual peanut. The chaps were afraid he would actually take it for a peanut. Sirius feared this especially.
"What if he eats it!" he whispered.
"That is so beastist!" James whispered back. "Just because a giant is a giant, doesn't mean he eats baby animals as peanuts!"
Haggers, who had remembered to put on his apron but not his accent today, raised the peanut to his beard.
"You really came here to give me one peanut? Well I do like peanuts! Thanks chaps!"
He was about to stick the peanut between his beard and moustache. The chaps shouted protest.
"It's not a peanut!" James had to yell, because Haggers was super tall and a bit hard of hearing.
Hagger's face darkened. "Were you trying to trick me?!"
He didn't like being tricked, especially not by these chaps.
"What is it really?!"
"It's a dwarf lop," Remus explained. "That's just what underdeveloped and deformed baby dwarf lops are called. It is sick and dying. I just came looking for advice."
"Wow that is so sad," said Haggers.
"I was just going to kill it, but..."
"We'll I'll do some research, but I doubt I'll find anything you haven't."
"Is there really no cure then?" James asked.
"A cure? Sure there is a cure."
"There is a cure? Then why the unnecessary drama?"
"But it's hardly worth bringing up, because it's so expensive."
"That's it? It's a little pricy?"
"Don't get all condescending you toffee nosed nob. It's more than 'just a little pricy'.
"Don't call me a nob!"
"It is outrageously expensive because the cure can only be found in a cave in the sea of tranquility when the Earth is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars."
"I'm not the nob. Sirius is the nob."
"That's when the Jade Rabbit wakes up from his long nap and begins to bash it out with his pestle and mortar. I think it would cost 800 million wizard pounds to get it, to be precise. I doubt you put that much gold on your breakfast."
"OooOoo!" said Sirius.
"What you laughing for you're the nob," said James.
"Denial isn't just a pyramid in Egypt."
"Whatever. I take your point. Getting the cure would be so crazy expensive I'd have to sell my family jewels in the street to scrape together that kind of money. I guess we better just set up some sort of fund."
"That's a very good idea!" said Haggers, his giant temper rising and falling like his soufflés.
"And also, we better make a saucy calendar to gather money for the fund!" said Sirius.
"Ok but don't make it too saucy."