So I Heard
I had always loved sounds.
I didn’t really know why. Perhaps the werewolf within had attuned my hearing to an exquisite point of sensitivity, or perhaps I could simply use my ears more efficiently than others. Whatever the reason, listening to different sounds was a highlight of my day.
There were morning sounds, like James thumping Sirius with a pillow to arouse him from slumber. There were classroom sounds, like chalk squeaking on the boards or small explosions as spells backfired. Then there were exam sounds, like quills scratching on rough parchment. And there were the very relaxing Common Room sounds, which included the crackling fire and the giggles of girls staring at Sirius.
All in all, these sounds were quite lovely to listen to.
But my favorite sounds occurred during mealtimes. Especially breakfast.
During breakfast in the Great Hall, there was the sound of hundreds of wings flapping as owls delivered the post to their masters. There were crunching noises as marmalade was spread on dry toast. There was the sound of spoons scraping the bottom of oatmeal bowls, trying to get the last, sugary remainders. And there was the sound of unintelligible voices, as people tried to speak around enormous mouthfuls of food.
No, wait. That was only James Potter, who had the unfortunate habit of chewing with his mouth open and talking at the same time. It was rather repulsive, actually.
Today was actually an interesting day for listening. Peter was extra thirsty, for some reason, and the pumpkin juice made a lovely swishing noise as it was poured from the pitcher into the glass. Adjusting the paper that I currently perusing, I sighed as Sirius, who was sitting to my immediate left, collapsed theatrically onto the table.
“You shouldn’t have kept me out all night, Prongs,” the untidy head moaned to his fork. “Don’t you remember that McGonagall was giving us a practice OWL first thing this morning?”
“So?” James retorted from across the table. “We never study for those practice exams anyway.”
Sirius groaned again and, without looking, reached his hand out, grabbed a sausage, and stuffed it in his mouth.
“You’re a sick man, Padfoot,” I replied with a straight face.
“Why thank you, Moony. I had no idea you cared.”
I rolled my eyes. Sirius had always been good at comeback lines. A voice that I hadn’t heard all morning piped up from my right. It was a whiny and rather nasal voice “ Peter’s.
“Just wait ‘til you find out what we did last night, Remus. Then you’ll think he’s really sick.”
I dared a glance at James, whose face gave nothing away. I turned my gaze to Sirius, who had a telltale smirk on his face. It was his pranking smirk “ the one he wore after he’d performed some mighty fine (and wholly inappropriate) prank.
I was amazed at how controlled and calm my voice seemed as I enquired, “And just what did you do last night, Padfoot?”
My eternally fun-loving mate raised his head, eyes gleaming. “Well …”
Unfortunately for my curiosity, his explanation was cut off before it even began by the bell, summoning us to class.
I remained in my seat, waiting to hear the explanation, but Sirius just gave me a cocky grin. “You’ll hear about it later, old man. In fact, I’m positive you’ll hear about it, right, Prongs?”
James’ face had morphed into a smirk that was nearly identical to the one that Sirius was sporting. “Oh yes you shall.”
I cursed the fact that I had been tired last night and had gone to bed early. Whatever they had done last night had been something huge…and probably highly embarrassing to someone. That cast a shadow of doubt on my mind, and I asked, “Whatever it is won’t hurt anyone, right?”
James shook his head vehemently.
“Come on, guys!” Peter’s nervous whine interrupted our question/answer session. “McGonagall hates it when we’re late.”
“That she does, Wormtail. That she does.” Sirius still had his cocky attitude, apparently.
And with that, we went off to take a nightmarish (for me, at least) practice Transfiguration OWL.
During the exam, I kept hearing Sirius chuckle under his breath. As I found Transfiguration to be one of the least humorous subjects to learn, I was forced to assume that he was fondly remembering whatever prank he had played last night.
I tried to turn my attention back to the exam, but it was of little use. My concentration was shot and I read the last question about four times before I even understood it. I didn’t really mind overly much, though. I had known the precise answers to the majority of the questions (a rarity), so I felt fairly confident about passing.
As staring uncomprehendingly at my parchment was useless, I glanced around the room. Peter was sitting a few seats to my right and was nervously chewing the tip of his quill. He never was the brightest student, even though he did come up with fairly devious plans. I shifted my glance to the front of the room, where Sirius sat. He was lounging (how exactly does one lounge at a desk?) in his seat, with his hands behind his head. He always did well on exams, regardless of whether he studied or not. Lucky fellow….
Fortunately, I suppose, class ended and we all turned in our parchments. Sirius, Peter, and I all waited until James had gathered his things (he was always the slowest) before leaving the classroom.
The corridor was jammed with students as it usually was and as always, it was a tad difficult for the four of us to wind our way through the crush of people. Fortunately, all four of us had a free period, so we weren’t in any hurry. Sirius was directly ahead of me, so I leaned forward and whispered, “So, what did you all do last night?”
“Ah, yes.” The mischievous look returned to his eyes. “So, the three of us all went down to the dungeons last night because we wanted to see if we could brew a potion.”
That sounded highly unlikely to me. “A potion? Since when do you lot go around brewing potions?”
“Ever since old Sluggy mentioned a good one. Anyway, we were flipping through this book that Prongs had found…”
No doubt he had found it in the Restricted Section of the library while he had been hiding under his Invisibility Cloak.
Sirius turned his head a little closer towards mine as we continued to walk down the hall. “…and we found this really interesting one. So, we had to try it out, right?”
I nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“So, Peter went into the storeroom to find the ingredients and we made it. But we really wanted to test it and we couldn’t test it on ourselves.”
I was slightly confused, but plowed on, “The effects are that bad?”
Sirius was hesitant, but answered, “Well no, but it would have been impossible to test it on ourselves.”
“Right. Oh!” I exclaimed.
I hadn’t been watching where I was walking during our conversation and I had inadvertently walked right into a girl, who stumbled slightly from the impact and dropped the book she was carrying.
“Sorry, Sirius, hang on.” I turned to the girl. I didn’t recognize her, but she was wearing standard Hogwarts robes. I picked up the book and handed it to her. As she took it from me, I noticed that she had very long and very sharp looking nails.
As I handed the book back to her, I said apologetically, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
She didn’t respond, but she tipped her head to one side and fixed me with an intent stare. Her tongue, I noticed, darted out over her lips. I turned back to look at Sirius, who was now standing with Peter and James, several feet behind me. They were all quite intent on giving their fingernails a thorough examination. I turned back to face the girl. “Excuse me a minute, I’ll be right back.”
I went over to where my friends were standing and hissed, “Did you feed that potion to the poor girl? She can’t even talk!” I glared at Peter because I knew he’d be the first to crack.
And I was right. Peter eventually answered, “No, not really.”
Perplexed, I took another look at the girl. She was still standing in the middle of the emptying hallway, not making a sound. She was a very interesting looking girl, with a rather pointed nose and very thick hair. Her ears, I noticed, were slightly pointed.
“Is this some sort of appearance changing potion?” I enquired. “Because I’ve never seen her before.”
“Ah yes,” James shifted uncomfortably before answering. “It is rather like an appearance altering potion. And you’ve seen her before.”
I was very confused. I gave Sirius the raised eyebrow treatment and he began to explain, choosing his words carefully.
“Well, Remus,” he began slowly, “the reason we couldn’t test it on ourselves is because it’s meant for animals. And last night we tested it on the first animal we found.”
“Okay.” I was rather impatient with his slow answer.
He continued, “And, well, the potion changes an animal into their human form for a couple of days.”
Realization finally dawned on me. “I understand now. So, that girl is really some rat you found?”
There was a long pause before someone answered. This time, it was James. “Well, no. Actually, that’s Mrs. Norris.”
“Mrs. Norris! You fed an appearance changing potion to Mrs. Norris?” I practically shouted at my three friends.
“Remus, keep your voice down,” James implored.
“It won’t last that long,” Peter offered, trying to keep the peace.
“Another day at maximum,” Sirius added.
I took another good look at the girl. She did seem to have feline qualities. Then a horrible thought struck me.
“What are you going to do about Filch?” I asked rather hesitantly.
Peter and James both frowned slightly and Sirius’s eyes darted towards the human version of Mrs. Norris.
“Does Filch know?” I asked, horrified.
James closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.
Peter whispered, “Oh Merlin…”
Those were my thoughts, exactly. Although, my thoughts included rather saltier language whenever they noticed the girl. There was absolutely no way that Filch wouldn’t notice the disappearance of his beloved cat for an entire day. If Filch ever found out who had committed the atrocious (in his mind, at least) crime, my three best friends would be in very deep trouble.
The girl, I noticed, had just licked the back of her hand and rubbed it on her face. I turned back to my friends and inquired, “Can she talk?”
Peter answered with rather impish glee. “Oh, yes. We taught her a few phrases. She’s supposed to remember them.”
Warily, I turned towards James, who elaborated. “She can say: ‘Hello’, ‘How do you do?’, ‘Nice to meet you’”, and ‘I love you’.”
Sirius continued. “We wanted to teach her the basics of communication before she was set loose on the Hogwarts population.”
Right. Brilliant plan, Sirius. I was annoyed at how they, especially Sirius, weren’t taking this matter…well, seriously. I decided to approach the girl again.
“Do you have a name?” I asked kindly.
She merely tipped her head at me again. That was going to be trouble; she didn’t even know her own name. In fact, I could hear trouble. A wave of horror washed over me. I could literally hear the plodding foot-falls of none other than Argus Filch coming down the corridor.
“Merlin!” I whispered under my breath. At my sudden expletive, James’s head swiveled around and caught sight of the caretaker. I heard a phrase issued from his mouth that would have earned him a weeks worth of the choicest detention if he’d said it in front of Professor McGonagall. I heard a few frantic-sounding mutterings from behind me and then Filch was by my side, glaring at the lot of us.
“Students in the corridors,” he sniveled. “Ought to be given detentions. Especially you.” He focused his watery, yet somehow beady, eyes on James, who was wearing a remarkably innocent expression.
“I ought to tell the Headmaster that I’ve caught you all wandering during school hours, I should.” He leered at us one last time before noticing the girl standing at my side.
“And who is this?” His voice changed somehow; it was softer, slightly deeper, and less whiny.
I heard a cough from behind me, although I wasn’t sure who it was. Thinking fast, I responded, “My…cousin.”
“Humph.” He gave a rather rheumy cough. “What’s her name?”
Damnation, I thought irritably. The one question that I couldn’t answer. I racked my brains and came up with what I thought was a suitable answer.
“Nora,” I said confidently, with a smile.
I figured that the name was a safe bet and I watched to see how Filch reacted. His face had a smile on it, an expression that I had never seen before. He gave a soft, almost inaudible sigh and said, mostly to himself, “I love that cat.”
Nora, or whoever she was, was gazing at Filch with rapt attention. Whereas she had only paid perfunctory attention to me, she seemed genuinely interested in Argus Filch. A small warning bell went off in my head and I backed up slightly so that I was closer to my three friends.
Filch’s focus seemed to return. “Out!” he barked nasally. “Get back to where you belong. All of you!”
Thankful to be given a reprieve for being (technically) out of bounds, the four of us began moving towards the deserted staircase. Nora, however, remained behind.
Peter tapped my shoulder and nodded in Nora’s direction. I cleared my throat, but Filch seemed to anticipate what I was about to ask.
“You lot move along or I’ll inform the Headmaster,” he wheezed grumpily. “And I need to talk with your cousin, Lupin.” The alarm bells in my head peeled deafeningly.
However, I nodded, and deciding not to take any chances, the lot of us quickly left the corridor.
Fortunately, we all heard absolutely nothing about Filch and Nora until after lunch. Unfortunately, it was I who heard.
There had been no sign of either of them during lunch. This was odd within itself, as we had expected Nora to eat with the rest of the students. And Filch’s rather grumpy presence was notably absent from the corner that he always occupied.
As we began our plunge down to Slughorn’s dungeons for a Potions lesson, I heard a faint clunking noise coming from behind one of the statues in a nearly deserted corner. I froze and motioned for James, Sirius, and Peter to be quiet. I believe Peter was the next person to hear them, as his eyes opened almost comically large. Sirius stood, rooted to the spot, with his mouth slightly open. James just shook his head slowly.
Sirius snapped out of his little reverie long enough to poke Peter in the shoulder and nod his head in the statue’s direction. Peter swallowed, but slowly crept forward, approaching the suit of armor slowly. He stopped and craned his neck to the side, so that he could see what was behind it. Then he bolted for the end of the hallway.
“Damn it,” Sirius swore under his breath.
The three of us took off after Peter. He wasn’t a fast runner, so we were able to catch him after one corridor.
When we had caught our breaths, he launched into his explanation. All I heard at first was a disgusted moan.
James raised his eyebrow, “It was that bad?”
Peter grimaced. “They were all over each other.” He shuddered horribly, trying to repress the obviously disturbing memory.
We still had to get to Potions, so we convinced Peter to start walking again. We traveled in an uncomfortable silence, each of us thinking about what Peter had just witnessed. It was Sirius who broke the silence a few moments later.
“You know, I think that this is a good thing.”
“How?” James and I replied in unison with the exact same disbelieving tone.
I could hear the smirk in his voice when he said, “Well, obviously the potion worked, and…” he paused dramatically for effect. “Filch has finally got himself a love-life.”
“She’s his cat!” I exploded.
For once, Sirius didn’t have a quick response for me, so I just gave him a glare and shook my head.
Peter finally spoke up again. “She had a tail again,” he muttered.
“It wore off that fast?” James sounded more curious than worried.
How superb. We had another nightmare on our hands. What were we going to do when Nora disappeared?
I pondered this problem throughout Potions, which left me fairly distracted. Fortunately, Sirius was able to correct most of my errors. Although, I’ll admit that I did come fairly close to melting a cauldron.
I was still thinking when we left the dungeons. And I was still thinking as we approached the Great Hall several minutes later. Thus, it took me a moment to notice that Filch was standing at the staff table. He seemed to be gathering food in a napkin. Once he had filled it, he looked around surreptitiously, and left. Quite odd, that.
I nudged James, who was sitting next to me, and pointed this out. A fairly crafty and Sirius-like gleam appeared in his eye. In turn, he bent over to where Sirius and Peter were sitting and began whispering. I could see Sirius nodding and Peter shaking his head, but sadly, I couldn’t hear them.
Eventually, James turned back to me.
“Sirius and I are going to sneak down to Filch’s office under the cloak. Peter doesn’t want to come. How about you?”
There was no way that I wanted to go. “You know, James, I’ll stay and keep Peter company.”
James shrugged and turned back to Sirius. They stood up and left the Great Hall. Peter and I simply exchanged a glance and shook our heads. James and Sirius would be back later with some exciting story for us. No need to risk yet another detention in order to experience that first hand. The two of us finished our dinner at a fairly leisurely pace and went back up to Gryffindor Tower. The Common Room was jammed with students, all of whom were being utterly rambunctious, so we decided to retreat to our dormitory.
We spent the next two hours “ and we knew it was two hours, as we watched the clock closely “ waiting for James and Sirius to return. I believe that we made a rather futile attempt to finish the Potions homework that had been assigned earlier, but we both lacked the necessary concentration.
Finally, James and Sirius returned. They both seemed quiet “ physically quiet, and also shocked. They sat down on the edge of my bed and Sirius uttered a little sigh. Peter came over to join us and asked, “What happened down there?”
Sirius nodded and began to talk. “Well, she turned back into a cat. Fortunately, that happened while Filch was in the bathroom.”
I made a small, exclamatory noise of relief.
“The good news is that I think she learned a few new phrases,” James continued Sirius’s story. “I clearly heard her say, ‘I want you.’”
Sirius grinned and added, “And I definitely heard, ‘Do it again!’”
“That’s rather disgusting,” I said, conversationally.
“Oh, that’s not even the best part, Moony old man,” Sirius said with a glimmer of his familiar mischievousness. I raised my eyebrows in response and Peter leaned forward eagerly.
“Well…” Sirius said, intent on making it as suspenseful as possible. “Let’s just say that you’ll never, ever be able to think of ‘meow’ in the same way again.”
That provocative information about Nora and Filch made me wish fervently that I would never witness Mrs. Norris yowling at Filch. Thanks to this “experiment”, that’s one sound that I would never want to hear.
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A/N: Thanks for reading and (hopefully) reviewing!
So I Heard by Indigoenigma
Chapter Notes: A very warm thank you to my wonderful beta, jenny_b! She did an outstanding job.
And, as always, I'm not JK Rowling. Oh well...
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