Mundungus Fletcher
Claudia and Sirius spent a lot of time together over the next few weeks. They worked on the alchemy project and try to make up for all the time they missed when they were not speaking. Late one evening, they were sitting in the library again, buried under an enormous pile of alchemy books. Their first alchemy essay was due the next day, and they just spent three hours trying to research cauldrons that would hold the universal solvent without disintegrating. Nothing they found seemed good enough.
Claudia was desperate to do well in alchemy and was getting frustrated with the lack of progress. This was not just about beating the others in the competition. The Headmaster was going to take the class through the rest of the term, and Claudia was dying to impress him. Professor Dumbledore was a respected and powerful wizard, and his word would go a long way in helping her case to become an auror. And next year, he would be the one to choose who the new Head Boy and Head Girl were going to be. A lot was riding on this essay.
"Got it!" Exclaimed Sirius so suddenly that he made Claudia jump. "We just use a magical force field, rather than a cauldron!" He explained.
"Do you know how to create a magical force-field?" Claudia asked, sceptically. Her eyes were getting rather heavy and she just could not match Sirius' enthusiasm. Especially not for an idea that was so random.
"Be right back." He said, jumped up from the chair and run off to a different aisle of the library. Claudia had to smile. He really was trying so hard to do well.
Sirius was back in less than a minute, holding an enormous volume under his arm. He plonked it on the table in front of Claudia.
"Here." He whispered and leaned over her shoulder to point at a chapter about spells that could contain substances in mid-air.
Claudia picked up her wand and muttered the incantation. The air in front of her swirled for a bit, but that was it. Claudia turned to Sirius, who was still leaning over her shoulder to read the book. One of his arms was planted on the desk, the other rested on the back of Claudia's chair. It was very distracting.
"We need something to contain to see if it really works." She said, struggling to keep her eyes off his lips.
"This will do." Sirius smirked and picked up an ink bottle from the table and took a few steps away from the library books and their homework.
"Ready?" Sirius asked and drizzled the ink out of the bottle.
He took Claudia by surprise. She jumped up from her chair and muttered the incantation again. Mercifully, it worked! The ink stopped falling in mid-air and swirled around like it was being poured into an invisible vase.
"Do you think it will hold if I stop focusing on it?" Claudia asked tentatively.
"There is only one way to find out." Sirius smirked.
"We really didn't think this through…" Claudia sighed and slowly lowered her wand. But she should not have. The moment she did that, the ink resumed its path towards the floor. Sirius did his best to catch it with the bottle but failed miserably. He was covered in ink and so was the library floor. Claudia could not help but snigger.
"Oi!" Sirius chuckled. He lifted one of his ink-covered hands and before Claudia could react and move away, he smudged her forehead with his finger.
"You'll pay for this." Claudia hissed jokingly, dunked her hand into the ink on the floor and stretched to reach Sirius' face. But he was prepared and caught her wrist. She tried to free herself from his grip, but it was pointless. He was much stronger. They looked into each other's eyes and burst out laughing.
"What are you two doing here?" They heard the stern voice of Madam Pince. "What is all this ink? Clean it up!"
"Sorry, Madam Pince. An accident." Claudia mumbled and jumped away from Sirius. She could feel Sirius' grip on her wrist loosen. His hand travelled across her palm and then her fingers. It seemed to have taken an age before he let go of her.
"Scourgify." Claudia cleared her throat, pointing her wand at the floor and her hands. The ink faded.
"Teenagers." Madame Pince shook her head in disapproval and disappeared again.
Claudia sat back down at the desk.
"That might need some work." She sighed as Sirius joined her. She did not like being told off. Sirius chuckled.
"I'm sure there will be a way to make the field more stable." She continued. Sirius chuckled some more.
"But it will be tricky. We need to find something that will hold up for months." She added. Sirius was now laughing openly.
"What's so funny? I'm not wrong!" Claudia barked. Getting this field stabilised was no laughing matter.
"Sorry. I can't take you seriously. Not like this." Sirius quipped. He lifted his hand towards Claudia's face and wiped her forehead with his shirtsleeve. At first, Claudia did not understand what he was doing. Then she remembered the ink mark. She could not help but smile.
"Right. Back to the essay…" Sirius uttered when he lowered his hand. Claudia watched him pick up his quill and resume working on the conclusion. She could not remember whether she had ever seen him concentrate so hard. Despite that, it still took them right until curfew to finish the essay.
"I still can't believe we got landed with the solvent. All the other things could make you so rich." Sirius muttered as they were packing away their things.
"You're rich already." Claudia quipped.
"My parents don't exactly shower me with money anymore. I'm broke." Sirius replied.
"Is that why you're single? For the first time ever?" Claudia chuckled.
"That's exactly why…" Sirius smirked. "Take the money away and no one will date me." He added.
"I wouldn't worry." Claudia grinned.
"Wouldn't you?" Asked Sirius with a wry smile.
"No. The solvent is every crook's dream." Claudia replied. "It can break potions into components. The counterfeiters would put all the legit potioneers out of business within days." She added as she opened the door to the library.
"I'm so glad you are on our side. You would make one scary Death Eater." Sirius said, shaking his head. Despite the seriousness of the subject, Claudia had to laugh.
"Night Avery." Sirius added. It was time to go to bed.
"Night." Claudia whispered back. She walked back to the dungeons a lot slower than she usually did. She felt happy. For the first time in a very long time, she felt happy.
But that mood did not last long. As Claudia walked through the common room door, she spotted Julius sitting in an armchair, scowling at her.
"Where were you?" He barked.
"Good evening to you too." Claudia replied and sat down in the armchair opposite. Julius said nothing, so she continued. "Finishing the damn alchemy essay. Weren't you?"
"Green wanted to do it by himself." Julius muttered. That explained his mood, Claudia thought. He was always tetchy about his academic credentials. The fact that Green would rather do the essay alone must have hurt Julius' ego.
"And I don't see why you can't do it by yourself too, if Green can. Instead of spending time with him." Julius added, frowning even more. Claudia sighed. Maybe Julius' insecurities about his alchemic abilities were not the reason he was upset after all. Maybe it was about different sort of insecurities altogether. Claudia thought this was very unfair. It was not as if she was trying to get back with Sirius. If anything, she was spending most of her energy doing the exact opposite.
"I want to win. And I need all the help I can get." Claudia replied after a long pause.
"Whatever." Julius uttered. "I'm going to bed." He added, got up and stormed out of the common room.
Claudia leaned back into the armchair and closed her eyes. She had absolutely no idea why everyone around her was so desperate to date. Her first attempt at it ended in tears. And the second one was just such hard work! And what for? Other than Quidditch, they barely had anything interesting to talk about. They tried having sex few more times since the first time they did it in the summer, but it was not any better. Claudia felt as if Julius was trying hard to make the whole thing more romantic, but just made it even weirder for both of them.
I really ought to break up with him. Put us both out of their misery, Claudia thought as she got up and dragged herself to bed.
As she was lying there, staring at the canopy above her bed, she remembered what happened in the library earlier. She looked at her fingers and touched them in the same way that Sirius did. She could feel her spine tingle.
Pathetic, she thought. She just could not have Sirius know that she still had a crush on him. It was pitiful, and she would do anything to keep that deeply embarrassing truth to herself. And if being with Julius was what it took to keep herself from doing anything stupid, then that was what she was going to do. With that plan on her mind, she fell asleep.
Over the next few days, Claudia tried very hard to focus on her homework and Quidditch and ignore them both as much as she could. And she was doing very well too, at least until Sirius tapped on her shoulder on their way from Dark Arts one day.
"He'll meet us. Three o'clock on Saturday. Hogsmeade weekend. In the station waiting room." He whispered in Claudia's ear and run off again. Finally, Claudia thought. Finally, Marcus will get what he deserves.
On Saturday, Claudia shook off Julius and her friends and made her way towards Hogsmeade station. Sirius was already there, sitting on the railing in front of the waiting room.
"You're late." Sirius smirked and jumped down from the railings. Claudia looked at her watch. It was not even a minute past three.
"I'm very much on time…" She replied. "Is he here?"
Sirius shook his head and pointed towards the building. They entered it together.
"Dung will be here soon. He's a crook. But a punctual one." Sirius whispered and dropped to one of the benches that were lining the walls of the tiny waiting room.
"Dung?" Claudia asked, somewhat dubiously, and sat down next to Sirius.
"It's short for Mundungus." Sirius chuckled. "Don't ask me why he calls himself that."
Suddenly, Claudia heard a loud pop and a small unkempt wizard had materialised in the corner of the room. He was just as she remembered from the picture she saw in the Ministry of Magic. She jumped to her feet and so did Sirius, who walked across the room to greet Mundungus.
"Dung, mate." Sirius said jovially and shook his hand. But Mundungus was not returning the pleasantries.
"Who's this?" He barked towards Claudia.
"A friend." Sirius replied calmly.
"Got Ministry on my heels, mate." Mundungus said. "Got to be careful." Claudia could not help but notice that he was looking around nervously.
"Trust me, Dung. It's ok." Sirius continued to reassure him.
Mundungus growled, took out a filthy-looking bag from his coat and chucked it over to Sirius.
"Enjoy your Birthday, mate!" He smirked. Of course. Claudia thought. She almost forgot that Sirius was turning seventeen in few weeks.
Sirius took out a sizeable bag of gold from his pocket. He clearly was not as broke as he led Claudia to believe.
"One more thing, Dung… My friend wanted to ask you a few questions." He said and closed both of his hands around the money bag. The gesture was obvious. Mundungus was not getting the money yet.
Mundungus suddenly looked like a rabbit that had sensed a predator. He clutched his wand and pointed it at Sirius.
"Calm down, Dung. It's just a couple of questions." Sirius barked. Mundungus did not look too convinced, but lowered his wand. He did not, however, put it back into his robes.
"On the night of the murder…" Claudia began to say, but Mundungus interrupted her.
"How does she know?" He hissed in Sirius' direction.
"Doesn't matter." Claudia replied, sharply. It annoyed her that Mundungus did not speak to her directly. "On the night of the murder, did you see anyone else? Other than the corpse?" She continued.
Mundungus hesitated for a bit. Claudia noticed that Sirius was not so subtly playing with the bag of gold. She could hear the coins move about and got a distinct impression that Mundungus heard it too.
"Maybe." He whispered.
"Can you describe them?" Claudia asked.
"Tall bloke." Mundungus said, glancing at the gold again. "Light brown hair. Bit older than you two. And about as posh." He added, with a distinct tone of disgust in his voice. That sounded like Marcus, Claudia thought.
"Where did you see him?" Claudia continued. Mundungus swallowed hard and looked around again. This time, he was glancing towards the door.
"By the alleyway where they found the body…" He whispered.
"Would you recognise him if you saw him again?" Claudia followed-up. She was so close. She could feel it.
Mundungus nodded and turned towards Sirius.
"The gold mate, now." He barked.
Sirius looked at Claudia. She nodded, and he tentatively handed the gold over. Mundungus ripped the bag open and started to count the coins.
"I need you to repeat all of this to the aurors." Claudia whispered.
"No chance." Mundungus smirked.
"Please, the bloke you saw is dangerous." Claudia pleaded with him, but Mundungus did not move a muscle. She was becoming increasingly desperate. "It was Marcus Avery, my brother. And he is a Death Eater that needs to be stopped." She added.
Claudia did not think Mundungus could move this fast. Before she knew it, he was pointing his wand at them again and was also holding something dark and round in his hand.
"Get out of here." Mundungus' angry voice echoed through the ticket hall.
"Come on, Dung." Sirius said through gritted teeth. "No need to get violent." This did nothing to calm Mundungus down.
"Take your girlfriend and go." Mundungus barked. Claudia lost her patience with him.
"Look. You can either tell the Ministry. Or I will tell my brother you did!" She yelled at him.
Mundungus did not respond. He pulled something that looked like a pin out of the black object and threw it in their direction. Sirius grabbed Claudia's arm and started to back out of the room. The black ball was spinning on the ground, emitting a hissing noise. It was getting louder and louder. As if pressure was building inside it.
Sirius jumped in between Claudia and the hissing ball and pressed her head into his chest. A fraction of a second later, Claudia understood why. There was a loud bang and a lot of dark smoke.
"Fuck!" Sirius hissed and winced with pain. Something had hit him.
"Are you ok?" Claudia asked, barely able to speak. Sirius was holding her that tight.
"Yeah." Sirius whispered as the smoke slowly disappeared. Claudia had to stand on her tiptoes to peak over Sirius' shoulder. Mundungus was gone and bits of the ceiling had come down. It was a rather large piece of plaster that hit Sirius.
"You're bleeding". Claudia whispered as she noticed blood soaking through Sirius' shirt. His shoulder was injured. Sirius let go of her and touched the wound with his fingertips.
"It's nothing." He said as he examined his blood-stained fingers.
"Sit down and let me have a look." Claudia insisted.
Sirius sat down on the floor, grumbling something about an overreaction. He did, however, undid few buttons of this shirt. Claudia kneeled next to him and slipped the fabric from his shoulder to take a better look. Her hand shook as she did that. Never before did she touch his bare skin quite like this.
There was a small gash on the back of Sirius' shoulder. Claudia was no healer, but even she could fix that.
"I bought this earlier. It will help." She whispered, dug out a vial of Murtlap essence from her bag and carefully administered a few drops on the wound and waited.
The wound began to close, but Claudia barely noticed. She could not stop looking at her fingers. They were resting on Sirius' shoulder. The urge to caress his bare skin was overwhelming.
"You've got goosebumps." Claudia chuckled as she tried to distract herself and come back to reality.
"Well, it bloody stings." Sirius winced.
"It not supposed to." Claudia said, frowning and re-reading the instructions on the Murtlap essence vial.
"Well, it does…" He barked.
Claudia blew on the wound to dry out the excess extract.
"You don't have to keep rescuing me, you know." She whispered. "The thing would have missed us both." She added, finally managing to let go of him. She instinctively closed her hands together, as if she was trying to preserve his touch for just that little longer.
"Simple 'thank you' would have been sufficient… For once." Sirius muttered, sounding somewhat frustrated, and pulled his shirt back up to cover himself. Mundungus running away like that obviously got to him.
"Sorry, if my insistence to stop a murderer cost you your source of illegal goodies." Claudia replied sarcastically. He had no right to jumping into danger like that and then whinging he got hurt.
"I could have told you he'd get spooked if you mentioned the Ministry." Sirius frowned at her.
"Why didn't you, then?" Claudia shrugged.
"Because you never listen to me anyway." Sirius replied. Claudia had had enough. That was not fair in the slightest. He was the only person she occasionally did listen to.
"I have to go." Claudia said, looking at her watch. She was not sure why she did that. She had nowhere to be. But she knew that if she stayed there a minute longer, she would either have to kiss him or yell at him. And neither of those were good options.
Claudia and Sirius barely said a word to each other ahead of the next alchemy lesson. Claudia walked into the classroom with Julius. They were bickering over something again. Claudia did not even know how it started this time. It was probably because she was studying too much, or not making enough time for him, or most likely both.
Claudia dropped in the seat next to Sirius and sighed when she saw his face. He was clearly not over their argument.
"I can't cope with another telling off. Can you please save yours for another day?" She whispered.
"Boyfriend giving you grief?" Sirius asked, his expression somewhat softer.
"Still got absolutely nothing on you in that department..." Claudia replied.
Sirius took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry. For the whole thing." He whispered. Claudia looked up at him. This was the first time he apologised over the Christmas fiasco.
"It's ok… Friends again, remember?" She said, giving Sirius an encouraging smile. He smiled back and opened his mouth to say something but did not get a chance.
The door to the classroom flung open and Professor Dumbledore strolled in. It was the best lesson Claudia could remember ever getting at Hogwarts. And she was not the only one who thought that. The entire class watched Professor Dumbledore in awe as he recalled his attempts to make a Philosopher's Stone. Claudia was vigorously scribbling everything he said.
"Do you know what I've heard about him?" Sirius whispered to Claudia. She shushed him. This was no time for gossip.
"I've heard that he's quite involved in the fight against You-Know-Who." Sirius did not relent.
"Really?" Claudia whispered back in astonishment, forgetting for a moment that she was trying to make a good impression on Professor Dumbledore.
"Apparently." Sirius whispered knowingly. "He's heading up some sort of a secret society."
"Secret society?" Claudia said a lot louder than she wanted to. Professor Dumbledore stopped talking.
"Anything you two wanted to share?" He asked calmly. Claudia went bright red.
"No. Just planning the next essay, Sir. Sorry." She mumbled at speed. No secret society was worth getting into trouble with the Headmaster.
November had arrived and with it, the first Quidditch game of the season. Every time Claudia thought about it, her stomach turned violently. The captaincy was taking a toll.
But first, there was a small matter of Sirius' Birthday. She wrecked her brain about a present. Turning seventeen was a huge deal, so it had to be meaningful. But it could not be too personal. She could not ever let him guess how she really felt about him. Not if she wanted them to stay friends.
But she just could not think of anything sufficiently fitting and gave up. So, she just picked out a card and began writing him a message instead. It was lame, but she just had nothing better.
"Happy Birthday!
There is nothing that I can give you that would live up to this day. I cannot begin to imagine how happy you must feel. All your life… Waiting for this moment. To be free.
Claude"
She looked over the words of the card; they were unusually poetic for her. Then she remembered. She heard these words before in the hair salon in Winchester. There was a song playing on the radio.
Claudia spent the next two days trying to figure out what song it was. It bugged her to no end that she could not remember more of it. The record would make the best present for Sirius. Eleanor was of no use, and neither were her other muggle-born friends.
Claudia was nearly out of time when she remembered the Muggle Music class. The teacher will know and might even have it. She sprinted to the classroom as fast as she could. She did not even finish recalling everything she remembered about the song before the teacher dug out a tape from her cupboard and put it into a machine. Claudia saw one of these things in Eleanor's house.
The esoteric tones of the song filled out the classroom. Claudia closed her eyes and listened intently.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
"This is it. Do you know where I can get a copy?" Claudia whispered. "By tomorrow?" She added tentatively.
"I'll make you one. It's a song by the Beatles." The teacher smiled at her. She pressed few buttons on her machine and barely two minutes later, handed a copied tape to Claudia. It was proper Muggle magic.
Armed with the card and the present, Claudia caught Sirius on their way to potions the following day.
"Happy Birthday". She said cheerfully and handed him the package.
"But I didn't give you anything this year." Sirius smirked as he unwrapped it. That made Claudia laugh.
"I really don't blame you for that." She quipped, remembering that her birthday was around that horrible Hufflepuff game. "I did land your girlfriend in the hospital wing." She added. She could not quite tell which of them seemed more embarrassed by that memory.
Sirius opened the envelope. Claudia watched his eyes travel across the card.
"You're the only one who really gets it." He whispered and gave her one of those rare sad smiles. It was moments like these when he really let his cool bad-boy facade drop.
"I counted it last night." Claudia uttered. "Hundred and eighty-nine days." It was just hundred and eighty-nine days until she turned seventeen.
They stared awkwardly at each other for a moment.
"Avery! Is the practice still starting in twenty minutes?" Someone yelled from behind her.
"Coming!" She replied absentmindedly, still looking at Sirius. "I have to go… Hope you like the song." She whispered and turned to walk away.
"Claude." Sirius said. Claudia stopped in her tracks and looked back towards him. "You'll get there. And when you do, we'll celebrate… Properly." There was another one of those sad smiles.
"I'll hold you to that." Claudia muttered and run off to the Quidditch pitch. She had to get him out of her head. The practice was important. The first Quidditch game was at the weekend. They were up against James Potter and his Gryffindor rabble.
The team was shaping up brilliantly. Regulus may have been an annoyance, but he was a great seeker. Julius was having one of his good spells. And Emmanuel and Chris were settling well into the team. Claudia was very confident going into the first game. And almost rightly so. Slytherin absolutely wiped the floor with Gryffindor in the field, but Regulus made few mistakes and the Gryffindor seeker managed to catch the snitch before him. Even though Gryffindor only won by sixty points and everything was still to play for, Claudia was furious. She hated defeat.
The usual after-party in the common room was not exactly boisterous. The team was just chilling together. Claudia was sitting next to Julius, his arm wrapped around her.
"I think we need a new strategy." Regulus said grumpily. He was now on his fourth butterbeer and his grumblings were getting a lot louder.
"The strategy is fine. We just got unlucky." Claudia replied with a slight frown. She was not looking forward to what was going to come next.
"Unlucky." Regulus scoffed. "There is no such thing as luck in Quidditch. Just fuck-ups."
"Reg, no one blames you." Claudia whispered in his direction. She was trying very hard to keep her cool. She was the captain. She needed to be the bigger person here.
"Yeah. I've messed up the Ravenclaw game last year." Julius pitched in. "And as for the Hufflepuff game…" He added and looked at Claudia.
"As for the Hufflepuff game, we could have all done better." Claudia finished Julius' thought.
"Right." Regulus scoffed. "Except I'm better than all of you. I don't make mistakes." Claudia had had enough of him.
"You aren't perfect. And the sooner you admit it, the sooner we can all focus on the next game." She barked at him.
Regulus placed his butterbeer on the coffee table with such force that his bottle had shattered.
"I'm not going to be lectured by someone like you…" He hissed at Claudia and stormed out. The rest of the team were looking at each other aghast.
"Anyway…" Claudia said and stood up. "I'm off to bed."
Julius began to get up as if he was going to walk her across the common room to her dormitory.
"You can stay. I'll be fine." Claudia said and patted Julius on the shoulder. He dropped back to the sofa. Claudia could just about see that he exchanged a significant look with Emmanuel. She hated the idea that the two of them would talk about her behind her back.
Few weeks have passed. The weather was miserable and so was Claudia. Mundungus was a dead end, and she had nothing on Marcus.
Despite what she pretended in front of the team; she was still upset by losing her first Quidditch game as captain.
And the bickering with Julius was now nearly constant. Nothing that she ever did was good enough. And she noticed more whispers between him and Emmanuel. This annoyed Claudia to no end.
But worst of all, it was nearly December and she would have to go back to London for Christmas. To spend weeks under the same roof as her so-called family.
To cope with the emotional turmoil all of this brought, she resorted to hiding from the world in the library again.
One night, she was on her way back to the common room, when a house-elf run in front of her, bowed and passed her a note.
It was addressed to 'Marcus Averys sister' in the messiest handwriting that Claudia had ever seen. She ripped it open.
"I'll talk to Dumbledore. Nobody else. Bring gold. D."
"Mundungus." She whispered to herself and broke into a huge grin. He had come through. Finally! Some good news. Marcus was going to pay for everything he had ever done to her.
Claudia began running to the dungeons to find her notebook and to tell Sirius the good news. He must have been right about Dumbledore and his secret society. There was no other reason why Mundungus would want to speak to the Hogwarts Headmaster rather than the aurors.
Claudia did not even get to the end of the corridor before she caught something, or rather someone, in the corner of her eye. A hooded figure lurking in the shadows.
Instantly, she felt pain.
The sharpest, most overwhelming pain she had ever felt.
She could hear her scream echo through the empty corridor and tumbled to the ground.
Everything went dark.