Part 3 The Werewolves' Magic Institute
By Admiral Albia

In which Sirius gets sorted out and Harry goes HOME!

Disclaimer; I own nothing except the plot and any characters you don't recognize from the books. It's very simple. Jiggy McCue (and the other Musketeers) belong to the great god Michael Lawrence, the rest belongs to the great goddess J.K. Rowling.

My heartfelt gratitude to Caitlin Black. A better beta-reader I could not ask for.

Somebody complained about my little three pyramids (/\/\/\). They're there for a reason; they indicate a change of time or place. I'm sorry, but I'm not dropping them. Enjoy the story! =)

Chapter 3; Voldie, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
"M-my lord? I have the information."
"Are you sure, Wormtail?"
"Yes, my lord. I checked this against several... sources. They all confirmed it."
"Excellent. Alert Cerberus and Doxy. I hope they will be more efficient this time." Remembering the last time Cerberus and Doxy Black had attempted to bring their son to heel, Voldemort frowned. "And Wormtail."
"Yes, my lord?"
"Remind them that they are not to kill unless it is absolutely necessary, will you? And also that they should not, repeat not send my Mark into the air."
"Yes, my lord." Wormtail vanished and Voldemort sat back. It would be nice, he reflected, to mix the Blacks' loyalty with Wormtail's intelligence and get a decent servant - though Wormtail's intelligence, he rather suspected, would not be too helpful. Still, he was more intelligent than the Blacks. Anyone was more intelligent than the Blacks. The Dark Lord found himself wondering how such a pair of dunderheads had managed to have a child as clever as Sirius... at least the boy's method of escaping Azkaban had been imaginative, with some chance of success, unlike his parents' `sit still and wait for the wall to fall in`. That said quite a lot...

/\/\/\
"Paper, junk, junk, James, junk, playscript... oooh, Jiggy McCue playscript, playscript... no, scratch that, junk... magazine, junk." Sirius sighed, cleared the junk away and sat down to read James' letter, which took him all of two minutes since it was basically saying that James had gone to see his old boss, revived his old boss, and got his old job back. Sirius wrote back telling his friend to take smelling salts in, and grabbed the Jiggy McCue playscript. The title read; The Toilet of Doom. A/n; the title of the book belongs to Michael Lawrence, as do the words Sirius is about to read. Don't sue me.> He opened it and ran his eye along Jiggy's opening speech.
Jiggy: Ever had the feeling your life's just been flushed down the toilet? I have. And it wasn't just a feeling. I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up that Sunday morning, but if I'd had any idea how wrong I would have jumped straight out of the window on to my mother's favourite rose bush and ended it there and then...
Grinning, Sirius began to read through the script. He had every right to grin; The Poltergoose had been a big hit, so had The Killer Underpants, and now the Three Musketeers were back. So what if he'd been twelve then? There were age-reversal potions...
/\/\/\
"How much further?" Mona grumbled as the six of them toiled up the hill on the very outskirts of the town.
"Not far... just up to that ridge." Remus pointed, and would probably have said more except that he was cut off by a groan from Indus, a tall, black-haired, lanky boy who'd just grown a tail. "Concentrate, Indus!" Remus moved back to help Indus with his reversing-direction knees and Harry found himself next to Mona, which he wasn't sure if he was too happy about. She was nice enough, and true to Paul's prediction seemed to have calmed down about his presence, but there was something about her that he found disconcerting. He just couldn't put his finger on it...
"I heard you're coming to the WMI next term," she said. Harry nodded, too out of breath to speak. "I think you'll like it there... as long as you stay away from Murdock. Well, all the Lumpitians, really."
"Stay away from Lump-Lucet. Got that," Harry panted. "You going... Hogwarts?" he added as they finally cleared the ridge and emerged onto flat ground.
"No, thank God!"
"Why don't any of you want to go?" Harry asked, surprised. Mona shrugged.
"Most humans hate us, and the few that don't generally pretend to. We're best left alone."
"What about jobs, though? You have to try, don't you?"
"Not any more. Since it was discovered there's about ten thousand werewolves in Britain alone, with at least another twenty being bitten each year, we've given up on that approach. Most werewolves work for other werewolves now, and buy from werewolf shops... I think they're campaigning to set up a Quidditch team, too." She grinned at him. "The WMI was just the start."
"Mona!" Paul yelled from below them, "D'you have a painkiller with you? Indus' knees are playing up again!" Mona swore, and ran back down the hill, which was probably just as well - she'd rendered Harry speechless. Now that he'd got his breath back, though, he could look around properly.
The piece of flat land on the ridge was about the size of a football A/n; soccer> pitch, with gently rising slopes on three sides and a steep drop on the fourth; the side Harry had just come up from. There was a small log cabin at the other end, which Harry stared at with mild annoyance. They'd come all the way up here for a log cabin? It wasn't too interesting anyway... not half as interesting as the multitude of animals, all of whom were making a tremendous din; if Harry hadn't known better, he'd have said they were laughing.
Oh, you got here, said a voice by his ankle. Harry jumped, then remembered Tkaa, Sirius' pet snake.
"Hi," he said, looking down.
Yeah, whatever. Pipe down, you lot! This last remark was addressed to the animals, who quieted almost immediately.
"What's going on?" Harry asked, confused, as he picked the snake up.
Emilily came over this morning. If it was capable for snakes to smirk, Tkaa would have been doing so. He raised his voice slightly. Sirius has got a crush, Sirius has got a crush...
Almost instantly, an answering yell came from the cabin; "I DO NOT have a crush!" The animals began to make a sound that was vaguely like a snigger. Harry realised suddenly that one of them was a snigger; he turned round to see Remus.
"Can't keep anything quiet, can you, Sirius," he called.
"For the last time, I DO NOT HAVE A BLOODY CRUSH! Oh, it's you." Sirius had apparently finally given up on whatever he had been doing; the door opened and he stepped out, glaring at the animals in general and Tkaa in particular."Don't listen to the snake, he's just trying to make trouble."
Pheromones, Tkaa said.
"Pheromones can be for anything. You can be a snakeskin handbag, so shut up."
"Inside or outside?" Remus asked his friend as Sirius drew nearer to them.
"Hm? Oh. Outside. Inside got done this morning. Ah, these must be Paul and Anna..." the twins nodded shyly. "And the others are...?"
"Indus Halfridge," Indus said from behind Remus, who dragged him out.
"He's even worse than you were," he commented. "Oh, Indus! I know you're nervous, but... can you keep your ears where they're meant to be, please?" Indus went cross-eyed for a second, and his ears began to crawl back down his head.
"Mona Weatherby," Mona said, and she stuck out a hand, which Sirius kissed before rounding on Binary and saying crossly,
"I don't give a damn what Emilily says. Shut up, you... unicorn!"
/\/\/\
The afternoon passed reasonably well, though Remus found a colony of Mandrakes which had to be uprooted and burnt and Sirius, further up the hill, found that his Gillyweed was taking over the river. It was somewhere between these two incidents that Harry began to feel a familiar sensation in his lower regions.
"Sirius, where's the toilet?" he asked.
"In the cabin, door on the right." Harry thanked his godfather and hurtled into the cabin.
Once his mad dash had paid off and he'd emerged from the bathroom, Harry had time to observe the inside of the cabin properly. His first implications had been that it was a lot like Hagrid's, but he was wrong; it was bigger, with three rooms and more furniture and windows. A bookcase ran all along one side, with gaps for the windows. There were more books on the floor, six big scrapbooks piled on top of each other. Curious, Harry looked closer; the top one bore the legend Marauders' Journal 2nd Year - Padfoot's Copy and was full of wizard photographs, notes written in class and pieces of paper which Harry recognised from recent experience as receipts for tricks. Harry guessed correctly that the rest were for different years, and moved on, nearly tripping over a stool on the floor as he did so.
The rest of the room was pretty boring, somehow, and were it not for the sheer amount of perches, heat pads and cat-or-dog baskets Harry would have been tempted to swap it for Hagrid's and see if anyone noticed. As he was leaving, however, he saw a basket whose lid said Junk and he couldn't help but lift up the lid and peek in.
Mostly it seemed to be paperwork; several adverts for Sleekeasy's Hair Potion and free credit at Ollivander's leapt out at him, along with discarded playscripts and... a diary? Harry stared at the book, then, slowly, pulled it out from the papers. It was whole, intact, and very thick; looking at it, he saw that it was for 1976-1986. It was also empty; but Harry had had enough experience with Voldemort's diary to know that what you saw wasn't always what you got. Intrigued, he stuffed it up his jumper and headed back outside.
/\/\/
A/n; my devoted readers *cough*draicana and JillZee*cough* may start to notice plot inconsistencies here. I know about them, don't worry - this story's just evolving a bit too fast, that's all. I'm doing my best, believe me... anyway. On with the story...>
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"Nice house," Harry said, impressed.
"Thanks," his father said with a grin. "Glad you like it, I grew up here... it's the family house."
"You said you were going house-hunting!"
"Yeah. That was before Alyssa told me she wasn't using it. Come on, I'll show you to your room." And without another word, James kicked a panel in the wall, revealing a staircase, and began to climb it.
"Show off," Remus said, before following his friend up. To Harry he added, "He knows this place like the back of his hand. Probably just as well, come to think of it, it's huge."
"I noticed," Harry muttered, thinking of the outside. It looked like the house was almost as bad as Hogwarts.
/\/\/\
"Well, here you are," James said, dropping Harry's trunk at the foot of the bed and flipping it open with his wand. "It's a bit high, I know, but then my room was even higher... I used to fly out of it." He grinned reminiscently. "I was seven before my parents realised why sending me to my room didn't work and installed a broom rack downstairs..."
"Isn't this Sirius' room?" Remus asked.
"Nah - that's a bit further down the corridor... anyway, Harry. Something I reckon you'll like about this room. James crossed over to the panelled side of the room, the side which the staircase opened into, and drew his wand. "Five up, thirteen across... ah!" He tapped the wall with his wand and a small cavity opened up. "You should be able to hide things there from everyone but me... and possibly Sirius. Reckon you'll be able to get down again?" Harry assured his father that he would, and started to unpack.
Once he was sure James and Remus had gone, he hid Sirius' diary in the hole in the wall.
/\/\/
A/n; Oooh, naughty Harry... very, very naughty Harry... tut, tut, tut...
Many thanks to Caitlin Black, once more!
Next chapter they will actually go to the WMI! Shock! Horror!
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