I'm impressed by how quickly I managed to write that chapter! Not that anyone cares. Anyway, thanks a lot to all the people who have favorited/followed the stories of the Jade series and I hope you'll continue reading until the end (at least the end of Prisoner of Azkaban ^^).
Guest : Should I satisfy your curiosity or not ? ^^ I think I'll give you a few hints and hopefully it won't spoil the fun of waiting for next chapters. Now James indeed bragged to his children about being an Animagus which is part of the reason why Jade thinks they're the coolest thing on Earth. As for tales of the Marauders, he of course told his kids all about it but didn't really go into details as to who belonged in the group. And even though he told them that he was an Animagus he never said anything about the others. Of course, as I said in the first chapter the name of Sirius Black is familiar to Jade.
I won't say anything more! You'll just have to wait for the next chapters to get the details!
The morning after her 'escape', Jade was joined by Remus. The werewolf arrived just as she was enjoying homemade pancakes that Tom had skilfully made for her. When the man suddenly sat across her at the table, Jade whose mouth was full of pancake soaked in syrup could only widen her eyes. She hurriedly finished her mouthful, drank some water to help the food down her throat and stared at the man.
"Uncle Remus, what are you doing here?" she asked.
The man in front of her smiled tiredly. He always looked tired. That was of course because he was a werewolf. His transformations took a lot out of him and he couldn't find good jobs because of the laws, he therefore didn't have much of a regular income and lived a difficult life of poverty.
"Your parents asked me to come and see you, your dad wanted to come himself but Lily thought you wouldn't appreciate seeing them right now." replied the pale man.
It was definitely scary how well her mother knew her, Jade thought. But she supposed it had its advantages. For instance, if they had appeared in front of her today she wasn't sure she would have been able to remain polite even if they were in public.
"Did they ask you to bring me back?" asked the raven haired girl.
"No, your dad wanted me too but your mother thought that you would be in need of time." replied Remus.
Jade raised an eyebrow she had never noticed just how much authority her mother had over her father. By the sound of it she had a lot.
"So you're just here to check that I haven't been murdered by an escaped convict?" she asked, purposefully hinting at her new found knowledge of what had been hidden from her and her twin.
She spread strawberry ham on her last pancake, as the man sighed heavily.
"You know about it, then?" he asked.
The raven haired girl looked up from her plate to look at the werewolf. The man didn't look angry just tired. She nodded.
"Yes, I saw it in the Daily Prophet on the Knight Bus." she explained. "Sirius Black, one of Voldermort's followers."
When he heard the name 'Sirius Black', Remus tensed. The emerald eyes narrowed, he knew something he wasn't telling her. This was definitely suspicious. She was absolutely sure there was more to that Sirius Black than what she had seen in the Daily Prophet, after all she was positive she had heard that name before. She just couldn't remember when.
"Actually, I didn't just come to check upon you." said Remus. "I'm going to spend the last two weeks until the start of term with you."
Jade munched her strawberry pancake slowly, a thoughtful look on her face.
"So you're on babysitting duty." she said finally. "Will we be staying here at the Leaky Cauldron?"
The man nodded.
"I already rented a room for myself." said the werewolf. "By the way, your mother told me that you hadn't bought any of your school supplies."
"Yeah, I was planning to do that today actually. I don't need much anyway. Just my books, parchment, ink, quills and Potions ingredients." said the raven haired girl. "I didn't grow at all so I don't need new robes."
The man smiled.
"Well, I'm sure you'll have a growth spurt sometime soon." he assured her.
Jade beamed at him.
"Right, you think so too! Dad kept telling me I might have already reached my maximum height." she complained. "That idiot! Why isn't he nice like you are? I wish uncle Remus was my godfather instead of Christopher's, then I could call you 'Dad' just to make him mad!"
Remus laughed though it seemed a bit strained. Jade found it a bit strange but decided it was probably nothing. That's right, Remus was probably just tired nothing to fuss over.
"Anyway Uncle Remus, did you find a new job yet?" she asked, fearing that the reason why the man had time to look after her was because he couldn't find one.
To her surprise and relief the man smiled.
"I did. I will be starting my work in two weeks." said the man with a mysterious smile.
"What is it then?" asked Jade curiously.
The man laughed softly.
"That's a surprise." he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes, just like the one he had when he talked about the Marauders adventures. "If you behave well I'll tell you before you get on the train."
Jade pouted, making the man laugh cheerfully. Jade soon joined in. When the young girl had finished the last mouthful of pancake, she went back to her room to brush her teeth and get her money. She then went back down and met with Remus. They spent all morning shopping. It was quite fun to shop for supplies with her Uncle Remus, the man was surprisingly funny. Maybe it was a side effect of being friends with James…
They first went to get ink, quills and parchment at Scribbulus Writing Implements. Jade bought her usual dark red ink which was used by most Gryffindors as well as a pot of colour changing ink. She spent a lot of time looking at a pot of dark green ink. She really liked dark green, it was by far her favourite colour. That was of course because it was her mother's eye colour. She wasn't that fond of other kind of greens though, especially emerald green…Anyway, she couldn't buy green ink because green was Slytherin's colour and it could be badly interpreted by her fellow Gryffindors. It was stupid but unfortunately it was also reality.
She moved to the quills and picked a couple of Fooper quills. She didn't hesitate very long for the colours as it was orange, yellow, lime green or pink. She hated lime green and pink would just be a disaster so she chose a yellow and an orange quill. She then bought herself a magnificent eagle feather quill. It was a bit too fancy for class but she could use it for writing letters and such. Parchment didn't take quite as much time as she always took plain parchment for school.
She went to pay for her supplies and set to find Remus, she finally found the man standing by the door with a brown bag similar to the one she was holding.
"Are you done?" he asked smiling.
"Yes, did I make you wait?" said the raven haired girl.
"Not at all." he said shaking his head, then he extended the bag towards her. "Here a little present."
Jade blushed and took the bag.
"You didn't have to buy me a present, Uncle Remus." she protested.
"It's fine, it's not a big present and you looked like you wanted it." he said dismissing her protests with a wave of the hand.
The raven haired girl opened the bag and fished a pot of the dark green ink she had been looking at. Her blush deepened.
"Thank you, Uncle Remus." she said softly, staring at the pot of ink as if she had just been presented with the Holy Grail.
"And don't refrain from using it just because green is Slytherin's colour." he added sternly. "You should just do whatever you want, without listening to others. You don't have to hide the fact that you like green just because people would disapprove."
Jade at a loss for words just nodded, smiling brightly.
"Use it to send letters to your father." said Remus with a mischievous smile. "It'll make him go green!"
They laughed causing other customers to turn to them in surprise.
Once they had regained their composure they left the shop. They decided to go Flourish and Blotts next. On the way there Jade stopped in front of Quality Quidditch Supplies to admire the new Firebolt. It was the latest broom that surpassed even the Nimbus. She was practically drooling by the time Remus finally dragged her away from the shop window.
Getting the books was rather quick. Jade went to buy her schoolbooks while Remus went to have a look around. The werewolf loved books, so much so that he had been called 'the bookworm' by James on more than one occasion. He was a bit like Hermione really. He never looked completely himself if he didn't have a book in his arms and he was most at home in libraries and bookshops.
After the books were the Potions ingredients. For those they went to Slug and Jiggers Apotheticary. At last they had bought everything. Remus treated her to an ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Once Jade had vanquished her chocolate and pistachio ice cream and Remus was done eating his vanilla and toffee ice cream, they went back to the inn. They left their shopping in their respective rooms and went to have a light lunch. In the afternoon they changed to Muggle clothes and went on a trip in Muggle London.
Two weeks went by in a flash. Remus and Jade occupied themselves by walking up and down Diagon Alley until they knew it by heart. They also went into Muggle London a lot. Remus was keen on visiting every bookshop they saw. It was actually interesting to see Muggle books. Jade bought a few for herself. She also bought a very nice wooden box, which played music when you opened it. It was apparently called a music box, though this one was a bit bigger than usual as it was designed to be a jewellery box. Jade wasn't sure the box would ever see any jewellery as she didn't wear any herself but a box was a box and you could always find a use for one. More than the box itself, it was the music she liked. The shop owner had told her it was a song called Letter to Elise by a Muggle compositor called Beethoven. It gave her a nostalgic feeling whenever she listened to it.
During the second week, she met up with Hermione and the Weasleys. She was delighted to see all her friends and accompanied them shopping for their school supplies even though she had already bought hers. Remus stayed at the inn for a well-deserved rest.
Hermione was very excited about all her new subjects. It sounded like she hadn't been able to choose and took all of them. This startled Jade a bit as she didn't see how the bushy haired girl would be able to have time to attend all the classes. She didn't comment on it as she didn't want to spoil her friend's excitement.
Ron and Ginny weren't that excited about the year to come. What really interested them were the Quidditch season and the new Firebolt. Jade spent a lot of time with the two youngest Weasleys as well as Fred and George discussing the new broom. They also went to look at it in Quality Quidditch Supplies' shop window.
During the shopping trip, Hermione expressed her wish to have a pet.
"Well Jade has Hedwig, Ron has Scabbers and Christopher wrote to me saying he had gotten an owl called Orion for his birthday." she complained.
Christopher had indeed received an owl, it was a male black owl with impressive purple eyes. It was apparently a magical race unlike Hedwig so he had a better stamina and strength. In Jade's opinion, Hedwig was still better and more beautiful than that disdainful owl (ever since she had first seen it Jade had been convinced that Orion looked down on her).
"I can give you Scabbers if you want." said Ron with hope in his voice. "He's ill though, has been since we came back from Egypt…"
After Hermione had politely declined the red haired boy's offer, they had gone to the Magical Menagerie. Ron went to see the witch at the counter for his rat. While Hermione and Jade looked at the various animals. There were a lot of different kinds of pets such as purple toads, cats of all coulours, owls though none were as beautiful as Hedwig and black rats in a cage. The latter looked particularly nasty and the two girls quickly left the cage behind.
"I think I'd like an owl." said Hermione. "I mean they're pretty handy since they can carry your post."
"Yeah and they're nice pets too." agreed Jade.
The decision made the two girls went to the counter where Ron was having his rat examined.
"Okay well, if you don't want a replacement, you can try this Rat Tonic." said the witch at the counter.
"Ok." said Ron. "How much…OUCH!"
Something huge and orange had leapt on Ron and was fiercely trying to get to Scabbers who was on the counter.
"Crookshank, NO!" yelled the witch at the counter.
It was too late though as Scabbers had already fled. He had scampered off the counter and out of the shop.
"Scabbers!" cried Ron running after the rat.
Jade hurriedly followed after the red haired boy. Together they searched the street for the missing rat. It took them a good ten minutes to find it hidden under a bin near Quality Quidditch Supplies. Ron placed the trembling animal in his pocket.
"What the hell was that?" he grumbled.
"Either a small tiger or a very big cat." replied Jade. "I tend to think a tiger, though. It's probably a mutated kind or maybe a tiger-dwarf!"
"Er, right." said Ron not quite perceiving the reason for the girl's sudden excitement.
At that moment, Hermione came running towards them, carrying a large orange fur ball in her arms. As soon as he set eyes on the fur ball, Ron gave an indignant cry.
"You bought that monster!" he exclaimed.
Hermione blushed slightly.
"Well, poor Crookshanks has been in there forever and no one wanted him." she explained.
"Can't imagine why." grumbled Ron darkly. "Or rather I can't imagine why you'd buy such an ugly monster…"
"He's not ugly, he's a gorgeous cat." protested Hermione. "Aren't you Crookshanks?"
"Gorgeous…" repeated Jade.
The animal wasn't anything near gorgeous. Its fur was thick and a particularly distasteful shade of orange. It was a bit low-legged and his face was squashed as if he had run straight into a wall. Not to mention, it looked grumpy. Which, now that she thought of it, was pretty funny for a cat…A cat?
"That's a cat?" asked Jade disappointment evident in her voice.
Hermione and Ron stopped bickering to look at her.
"It's not a mutated tiger?"
"No, Jade. It's a cat." said Hermione at last.
It was Jade's turn to grumble.
"Well where's the fun in that?" she muttered under her breath.
Hermione seemed to have heard her as she rolled her eyes at her.
They parted with the promise to meet up on the Hogwarts Express and this time Christopher would be with them. Hermione had been curious as to why Jade was staying in Diagon Alley with her dad's friend rather than at home with her family. The raven haired girl had told her that she had had a fight with her parents and had ended up leaving the house. It wasn't a lie, she just didn't go into details. As far as she was concerned the matter of what her parents had tried to hide from her and her twin was a private one, and it was therefore none of Hermione's business. Though, she didn't tell the bushy haired girl that for fear of upsetting her.
