Brownies, Explosions and Wagers
“I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“As am I.”
“You could knock me over with a quill.”
“Oh, come on,” Peter said, setting a wooden spoon covered in brown goop down on the counter where James, Sirius and Remus had made themselves comfortable. They had been making remarks like this for the past twenty minutes. “Is it so hard to believe that I can cook?” He turned the sink on and ran the spoon under it, rinsing the gooey brownie mix off it.
“I don’t know,” Sirius said thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, Remus here can sing and play the piano, and now you can cook? What secret abilities do you have, James?”
James could actually bake, but not to the extent Peter could. He shrugged in a nonchalant manner and thought of a better, more original talent of his. “I can juggle plates.”
Sirius laughed loudly, before stopping and facing James seriously. “Wait, honestly?”
James nodded towards Peter. “Hand me two plates, will you, Pete?”
Peter, looking as though he was doing this against his better judgement, warily retrieved two plates from the nearest cabinet. Tentatively, he handed them to James. “Try not to break them,” he pleaded. The last thing he needed was for his mother to come home and find two of her plates smashed to pieces.
“Don’t worry.” James grasped the plates in each hand and, very steadily, began tossing them in the air and catching them.
“Okay, I feel like a complete loser now,” Sirius lamented, though with a big grin on his face as he watched James continue to juggle. “The most I can do is roll my tongue.”
“You should feel proud,” James commented earnestly, still juggling the plates, his eyes narrowed in focus. Sirius, smirking, stuck his tongue out and rolled it. “See, you’re talented,” James commended, successfully catching the two plates in each hand and setting them down beside him on the counter.
Peter, relief evident on his face that no plates had been shattered, said, “If my parents had walked in to see you juggling their silverware, they would have heart failure.”
James chuckled reminiscently. “My mum screamed for about five minutes straight the first time she saw me do that.”
“And how old were you when you discovered this talent?” Remus inquired leaning forward so he could see past Sirius to where James was sitting.
James glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Four, I think.”
“I see your mum’s reasoning.”
“I don’t see why she went so mental. For all she knew, I could have turned out to be a plate juggling prodigy.”
“Yes… or you could have cost your mum every plate she owned.”
James scoffed. “You’re such a cynic.”
“Is anyone going to help me clean this up?” Peter piped up suddenly after he slid the tray filled with brownie mix into the oven. He was looking pointedly at Sirius, who was the one with a craving for chocolate. Sirius, sensing the hint, promptly looked away, pretending to be intensely interested in the knitting patterns of the place mates on the kitchen table.
Remus sighed exasperatedly and slid off the counter. “I’ll help you, Pete.”
“No, that’s okay, you don’t have to,” Peter said quickly. Remus raised an eyebrow at him. It had been some time since the incident in the Shrieking Shack, but Peter occasionally treated Remus as if he was going to break at some point, as if he was still too close to the edge. Remus was not blind to this, but he did not understand it at all. He had proven that he was not going to have a nervous breakdown “ he hadn’t had one when it happened, so why would he now, weeks later? Peter, guessing what was going through his friend’s mind, nodded. “Here.” Peter tossed Remus a towel, which Remus caught as it almost hit his face.
“Wait a moment,” Sirius said abruptly. He leaned over and peered into the sink, where the wooden spoon was lying. “You cleaned the spoon already?”
“Yes… what’s it to you?” Sirius had been watching as Peter ran the brownie mix off the spoon and into the sink.
Sirius’s face fell. “I wanted it.”
James rolled his eyes and shoved Sirius in the shoulder. “How old are you, Sirius? Six?”
“Take nine years off my age, and yes, I am six.”
“You can still have the spoon, you know,” Remus said casually, picking up the soapy wooden spoon and holding it out to his friend. Sirius made a face of disgust and pushed Remus’s arm away, splattering Remus’s shirt with soap. He hastily wiped it away with the towel Peter had thrown at him. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”
The front door opened and Mrs. Maggie Pettigrew strode inside, carrying three grocery bags filled to the brim with groceries. James and Sirius immediately took on their gentlemen facades and slid off the counter to relieve Mrs. Pettigrew of her burden. “Thank you, boys,” she said rather breathlessly, fanning herself with the letters she was gripping. The weather outside was stifling, and it was no better inside the Pettigrew house when the oven was on. Only Sirius could want a warm brownie on a day when entire egg breakfasts could be made on the sidewalk.
Apparently Mrs. Pettigrew was thinking along the same lines as three of the four boys. “Peter, how could you possibly be baking in this weather?”
“One of my friends is clinically insane,” Peter responded, pulling down the oven door to see the progress the brownies were making.
Mrs. Pettigrew made no further inquiries and, instead, simply opened the window above the counter where the boys had been sitting moments earlier. “I have some letters,” she said, shuffling through the parchment envelopes in her hand. “Here you are, Remus,” she handed Remus the letter on top. “And one for you, James,” she gave James the letter that had been resting under Remus’s. She took the rest of the letters and set them down in the letterbox at the centre of the table.
“Hmm,” Remus said as his eyes scanned his letter, his brow furrowed.
“What?” Sirius asked curiously, trying to read the letter over his friend’s shoulder.
“My dog is a father,” Remus laughed.
“What?” James, Sirius and Peter yelped.
“He’s a father,” Remus repeated, laughing even harder. “He got a bit too friendly with a Lab in town and she gave birth to three puppies yesterday.”
“Aww, Remus is an uncle,” Sirius crooned sentimentally.
“What are your parents going to do with the puppies?” Peter questioned.
“They took two and the owner of the other dog kept the third one. My parents are probably going to give one of them away. They can’t handle four dogs.”
“Three,” Peter corrected.
“Four,” Remus insisted, pointing to himself. “Personally, I think Dommie is the worst one to handle. Hey, any of you want a dog?”
“Mum?” Peter asked hopefully. He had always wanted a dog and his friend was offering one for free.
Maggie’s lip twitched. Peter wanted a dog, yes, but he would not even be around for the remainder of the year to take care of it. Yet, she had always wanted a dog when she was a child and her parents had refused. She turned to Remus. “When could your parents bring it by?”
Peter grinned triumphantly.
“As soon as I write to them,” Remus replied happily. His parents were keeping one of the puppies, but they wanted a good home for the other one. The Pettigrew house would be a nice place for it. Remus took the quill and ink that was pushed against the wall on the counter and turned the parchment over, writing his own response for his parents. When he was finished, he straightened up and folded the letter so his response was facing upwards. “What did your letter say, James?”
“Oh,” James started, startled. He had not even read his letter yet. His eyes quickly scanned the page. “Nothing very interesting,” he admitted. “They were just wondering if I was having fun and that Willie’s thinking of trying a new cake recipe “ tripe cake.”
“Ugh,” Sirius groaned, cringing in disgust. “What is she thinking?”
“That since my parents enjoy tripe they might like it in cake batter.”
“No offense meant, James, but that’s revolting.”
“Yeah, it is,” James conceded wholeheartedly. He pocketed the letter, trying to force the image of a cake made of tripe out of his mind. “So, what d’you guys want to do?”
“No lakes around your house, are there, Peter?” Sirius queried, folding his arms across his chest and cocking his head to the side. It had almost become tradition for the boys to visit a lake during the summer holidays. This was mainly because there was a lake around both James’s and Remus’s houses. Sirius, to his disdain, lived in the heart of London and there were no lakes to be found around his house. Peter did not live in the country like two of his friends, but he did not necessarily live in the city either.
“No…” Peter replied distractedly as he bent down to peer once more inside the window on the stove door. Straightening up, he answered more definitively. “No, there aren’t any lakes near here.” He took the oven mitt off the counter and placed it securely on his hand so he could remove the brownies. “I wish there was one,” he added, setting the tray down on the stovetop to cool.
“Why’s that?”
“We’re going to need a way for you to get this sugar out of your system.”
It was a quiet, still night, the only sounds to be heard were the chirping of the crickets, the occasionally rustle of the trees as a small breeze passed through, and the light breathing of the four boys crammed inside the parlour of the Pettigrew house. Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew had done as Mr. and Mrs. Lupin had and forced four cots into the room that was usually crowded with sofas and chairs. These pieces of furniture currently resided in Peter’s room. The boys had exhausted themselves in their attempt to keep Sirius from devouring too many of Peter’s delicious, and sugar-filled, brownies. They could hardly handle a Sirius when he wasn’t wired on sugar. They shuddered to think of what his behaviour would be like after he’d eaten five considerably large pieces of pure chocolate.
The silence of the night was quickly broken by several pops and an abrupt rapping on the front door. The four boys bolted up and sat rigid in their beds, wondering if it was okay to move or not. Sirius, Remus and James glanced uneasily at Peter, their expressions clearly asking if it was protocol at his house for visitors in the early morning hours. Peter’s eyes told them that this had never happened before, at least not when he had been home. His mouth opened, no doubt in an attempt to call his parents, but he shut it quickly. If there was someone at the door who wasn’t supposed to be out there, they did not want to give that person any hints that the only thing on the other side of the door was four unarmed boys of fifteen.
The person knocked again, as though he or she was about ready to knock the door down if there was no answer, and it struck the boys as faintly odd. If this person had come to harm them, he or she would certainly not bother to knock, though it was in a harsh manner. This person would sooner throw the door off its hinges and invade the house with wand at the ready. Maggie and John Pettigrew came rushing down the stairs, both with their wands in hand. They threw a sideways glance at the boys, and John motioned for them to lie down. They did this reluctantly, but they knew Mr. Pettigrew was telling them to do the right thing. They would be less obvious to the callers if they were lying down.
“Who’s there? Identify yourself!” Mr. Pettigrew barked, holding his wand steady. “I’m armed!”
“John!” a familiar voice called back.
“You’ve got to come with us!” a second, also recognizable, voice shouted.
Though the relief was apparent in Mr. Pettigrew’s face, he still forced the callers to identify themselves or else he would not let them in.
“It’s Harry Lupin! I’m a writer for the Daily Prophet, my Muggle wife’s name is Anna and my son, Remus, is staying at your house and is probably only a few feet away from you right now.”
“It’s Charles Potter. I’m a Healer at St. Mungo’s, my wife’s name is Hannah and my son, James, is also staying at your house, as well as his friend Sirius, and they’re also only a few feet away from you, I reckon.”
Satisfied, Mr. Pettigrew unlocked the door and allowed the two harried men inside. Mr. Lupin and Mr. Potter were out of breath, though they must have Apparated from wherever they were coming from. The boys were surprised to see that the two men had not come alone, their wives were with them. What was going on? What would bring the four of them out at this time night? “What’s going on?” Mr. Pettigrew asked, lowering his voice and his wand now.
“Problems at the Lovegood house,” Charles whispered, though the boys just managed to hear.
“What kind of problems?”
“We’re not sure,” Harry admitted. “There were loud explosions, lots of yelling, the neighbours reported it. Dumbledore only just got the information to us.”
“Who else is heading there?”
“Mad Eye’s on his way,” Charles reported.
“Fabian and Gideon are going, as well,” Harry added. “We might have more coming, but so far, it’s just us. We need you to come, as well. If there are a lot of them, we need as many men we can get.”
John peered over at Anna and Hannah, who were hovering by the door. “Is Hannah coming as well?” He knew that Hannah had no objections to fighting, but he was not set on letting them go so readily. Not with all of the boys here. Anna, who was a Muggle, could not do much to help in this situation.
“We wanted them here,” Harry told him. “We can send them any information we get and they can forward it to Dumbledore.” Harry yanked the cloak off the rack beside him and threw it at John. “We don’t have time to waste.” And the three men ran out of the house and disappeared into the night.
“Mum, what’s going on?” Remus asked, his eyes fixed on the spot where his father had just been standing.
“Nothing, Remus, go back to sleep,” Anna said hastily.
Remus exchanged an incredulous look with his friends. How could she possibly expect any of them to go back to sleep after they heard there was suspicious activity going on at the Lovegoods’?
“We might as well let them stay up with us until the men come back,” Maggie said resignedly. The three mothers were well aware of the determination of four teenage boys to get what they wanted. It could do them no harm to simply sit up and wait for the men to return. Besides, they did know the Lovegoods’ son, Xeno. They would want to hear if everything was okay. Maggie, Anna and Hannah disappeared into the kitchen, speaking in hushed voices as they did so.
“Loud explosion at the Lovegoods’?” James said, his eyes wide with curiosity and a trace of fear.
Sirius laughed nervously. “Well, you know that family, for all we know, they could be the ones causing the commotion.”
Remus shrugged halfheartedly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. Let’s just hope you are.” He swung his legs over the edge of his cot and said he had to go ask his mother something.
“What do you think happened?” Sirius asked James and Peter as Remus disappeared around the corner.
“It could be those people we saw with Malfoy in the Forbidden Forest,” Peter reasoned before anxiously chewing his bottom lip.
“I was thinking that too,” James admitted, playing with a loose thread in his blanket. “We don’t know if they were still recruiting last year. We had too much else to worry about.”
Sirius nodded. With their friend in danger, how could they let their minds wander to the Forbidden Forest that they had visited in their third year? “They could have been. Maybe if I ask Regulus he could tell me.”
It was a well known fact to James, Peter and Remus that Sirius’s younger brother, Regulus, was considering joining up with the group they had found in the Forbidden Forest almost two years ago. The moment Sirius saw his younger brother conversing with some of the Slytherins involved, he snapped and proceeded to chase them down to the Forbidden Forest, Remus at his heels. Sirius vastly disagreed with the views of his brother, as they perfectly matched those of their parents, but he did not want his brother associating with people like that. Sirius couldn’t help that he was born with the protective older brother gene.
James tried to appease his friend’s darkened thoughts. “I doubt Regulus is stupid enough to go with these people at night. He may be a Slytherin, but he’d got some intelligence, at least.”
Sirius smiled darkly. “Why not? We saw him fighting Lovegood once before. Why wouldn’t he do it again?”
“Because this time it involved seriously hurting someone and his entire family, not just stupid hallway dueling.” James yanked out the thread he had wrapped around his fingers. “Your brother does have a brain, Sirius. I know you don’t like to think so, but he does.”
The corners of Sirius’s mouth turned up again. “Yeah… Regulus isn’t that stupid. Not yet, anyway.”
Remus reentered the room, carrying a copy of the day’s Daily Prophet, his eyes moving frantically as he scanned the front page. Eyes still on the newspaper, he sat down on his cot.
“Anything interesting?” James inquired. He knew the only reason Remus was reading the paper was to see if there were any hints of strange activity that could have led to the goings-on at the Lovegood house.
“Nothing that could tell us what’s happening,” Remus said quietly, his gaze still focused on the Prophet. He folded the paper in halves and held it out for James to take. “But there’s an article about Twikom being sacked.”
The four knew it was only a matter of time before Professor Dumbledore sacked their Defence Against the Dark Arts mentor, Professor Twikom. She had known all along that something was going to happen to Remus and had withheld the information. Professor Dumbledore could not have a staff member who was so selfish that it jeopardized the safety of one of his students. It was rare that a Hogwarts professor was actually fired; they usually left for other reasons. Some resigned, some were ill, others left for mysterious duties he could not tell his students, one even ran off with a love stricken banshee, but none had yet been sacked.
Sirius and Peter leaned over to read the article with James. “Says she went to Dumbledore with the information right after Madam Pomfrey took you down.”
“So why did McGonagall look so scared that morning?” Peter wondered. He had rarely ever seen such a terrified look in the Deputy Headmistress’s eyes.
Remus shrugged. “Maybe she suspected something and that was why Madam Pomfrey took me to the Shrieking Shack so early?”
“Could be,” James conceded. He folded up the paper and set it down on his cot. “So we’re on our fifth Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. I say we have a bet. How is this one leaving?”
“Three Galleons says they’re sacked,” Peter wagered.
Remus shook his head disagreeably. “No, four Galleons say this one’s run out of the school.”
James frowned. “Doubtful. The only people who would bother to run a professor out of school are us and I don’t really feel like it. Five Galleons that they leave on some unknown expedition that they won’t tell anyone about.”
“No way, mate,” Sirius disagreed vehemently. “This one’s leaving doing back flips because he’s so bloody happy to get away from the Slytherins.”
James laughed loudly, trying to imagine any professor doing that. “You’re on!”
Remus turned to Peter. “How did we get to betting on our professor?”
Peter shrugged. “That’s a good question.”
“Boys.” The four boys looked over their shoulders to see Hannah, Maggie and Anna standing in the doorway to the parlour.
“Yes, Mum?” James, Remus and Peter said in unison.
“You really should get some sleep,” Anna advised, crossing her arms across her chest. “They’re not going to be back for a while.”
The boys raised their eyebrows at each other; it was clear the women were going for the theory that if they went to sleep, they would find out what they wanted to know faster. This theory had been applied to everything “ Christmas, birthdays, and summer holidays “ and it hardly ever proved true. The boys would not rest until they found out exactly what was going on at the Lovegoods’ place.
Just then there were three distinctive pops from inside the kitchen. That was incredibly fast.
“I don’t believe it,” Harry Lupin snarled, the outrage apparent in his voice.
“It was utterly ridiculous,” Charles Potter raged, his feet stamping hard on the floor as he moved about the kitchen.
“What were they thinking?” John Pettigrew wondered in a tone much similar to his peers.
“What happened, Dad?” James called.
“There was no attack!” Charles replied heatedly.
“What?” the four boys and three women said in shock. If there was no attack, why had there been such a commotion that it drew the attention of others?
“Mad Eye won’t be pleased,” John muttered just loud enough for the others to hear.
“He hadn’t arrived yet?” Maggie asked her husband. “He’s usually the first on the scene.”
“Oh, no,” Harry said, appearing in the room with Charles and John at either side of him. “He was just arriving as we were leaving; we didn’t wait to see his reaction.”
“But what happened?” Hannah questioned impatiently. “If there was no attack, where did the explosions come from?”
Charles grinned wryly. “Xeno thought it would be fun to set off all his Exploding Snap cards in one of the potions his father was working on. He’ll be getting a warning from the Ministry of Magic tomorrow, I expect.” He suddenly scowled. “The boy should know better than to pull stunts like that, especially in times like these.”
“Times like what, Mr. Potter?” Sirius piped up. He knew exactly what Charles was talking about; they were living in dangerous times, but he wanted to know the specific reason.
Charles, however, was not willing to give them that information. “Nothing, boys, just go back to sleep.” The six adults lowered their voices and disappeared into the other room, unwilling to let their sons hear anymore of what had occurred that night and why they had all panicked.
The boys reluctantly listened to them and fell back onto their pillows. Why was it that whenever something exciting was happening, parents could do nothing except tell their children to go back to sleep?