➣ 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝟒 “𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙙”
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“Good morning, ladies,” Nicolás greeted, as he and Cedric—arm in arm—approached Aurora and Amara, near Hagrid’s hut. They were all earlier than everyone else for their first Care of Magical Creatures class of the year.
The morning was surprisingly sunny considering how quickly the fall had arrived. Thankfully, it was the kind of sun that didn't carry much of its usual hotness, leaving a cool ambiance for their enjoyment.
“Any particular reason you summoned us at this ungodly hour?” said Aurora, covering her yawning mouth, beside her, Amara seemed to be spacing out in her spot.
“Well, I thought you’d appreciate the heads-up before Care of Magical Creatures,” Nicolás shrugged.
“What do you mean?” asked Amara, now more aware of her surroundings.
With a wicked grin, Nicolás whistled. And they heard it, the sound of strong paws against the floor, running very fast. And in a second, Ember’s furry orange head appeared from between the trees. Nicolás walked up to Ember under the girls’ scared eyes.
“Hagrid was all too eager to give a lesson about Wampus Cats. Hello there, Dearie” Nicolás said, crouching down to scratch Ember’s head.
“It has six legs,” Amara said, her eyes glued on Ember’s fluffy paws.
“He has,” Nicolás corrected her.
“You didn’t invite the twins?” Amara decided to ask. “I thought they took Care too?”
“They do,” said Nicolás standing up. “But they already know Ember.”
“And Cedric?” Aurora asked with a teasing grin.
Nicolás grinned too. “Well, Ced was more than eager to greet Ember,” he said, looking down at the Wampus Cat. “Why don’t you greet him, boy?”
And Ember didn’t waste a single second before padding and jumping, tackling Cedric to the floor, licking and nuzzling the boy’s face. Cedric could only laugh at the feeling of Ember’s wet and rough tongue and cold nose, scratching the cat’s fur.
“That’s enough, boy,” Nicolás said firmly. A moment later, Ember jumped off him, padding to cover Nicolás from behind, his tail wrapping around the boy’s leg.
The girls still eyed the Wampus Cat with caution, and perhaps respect, because let’s be honest, Ember always looked regal, like some kind of Cat King or something, probably still trying to emulate Mufasa's majesty—nobody needed to be aware of Ember's crush ever since watching The Lion King.
For the next thirty minutes, Nicolás went over every piece of important information concerning Wampus Cats, from their unique physiology—including their six legs, their club-like tail, and their eyes —to their unique abilities like their capacity to exert Legilimency with their eyes, how they could run faster than an arrow and how their hair could be used as wand cores.
All of this was said with Ember parading the ground in front of them as if he were some kind of work of art in a gallery. Even after almost ten years of being together, Ember never lost his sense of regality.
Which was funny, considering Nicolás rescued him after he was left to die by his pack at merely days old.
“What do you mean they can use Legilimency with their eyes?” Aurora asked, wide-mouthed.
With a wide smirk, Nicolás looked back at her. “I mean just that,” under the confused eyes of the girls, he gestured, “Come here.”
Amara and Aurora looked at each other, confused and unsure, but they’d known Nicolás for a full year, and he had something going on with Cedric Diggory. That had to speak of his character a bit. So, naturally, they followed, approaching the Wampus Cat.
Nicolás grabbed Aurora’s arm gently and guided her in front of Amara. “Look him in the eyes,” Nicolás instructed her, softly.
Ember looked up at her, his yellow eyes gleaming for a moment, and Aurora stiffened as the cat entered her mind. After a few moments, Ember meowed his approval, and walked a few steps, allowing Aurora to pet him.
With a bewildered look and smile, the girl complied, scratching the soft fur on the cat’s head. “What..?”
“He uses Legilimency to see inside people’s minds. He determines who’s worthy of being around,” Nicolás explained.
Next came Amara, who had the same reaction and the same result. Ember’s approval. And soon enough, as the girls pampered Ember in pettings and compliments, Hagrid’s heavy steps took the half-giant to where the others were.
“Good mornin, lads!” Hagrid greeted.
“Hello, Professor Hagrid, fancy seeing you here,” Nicolás greeted with a smirk, making special emphasis on the word ‘professor’. Even from the distance, and through the half-giant's thick beard, he could see Hagrid blushing at his new title.
“Ah, been checkin on Ember, I take?” asked Hagrid.
“I was giving these lads a heads-up on Ember; hope you don’t mind I've done part of your job?” Nicolás said.
“Lads?” Cedric asked, giving him a playfully dirty look. “I’m older than you.”
Nicolás rolled his eyes, “These ladies and this grandpa, I meant.” That earned him a bump from Cedric’s elbow right in the ribs.
As they laughed, Hagrid approached Ember.
“No problem at all, I mean, thank yeh for lettin' me use Ember to show the class,” said Hagrid, petting Ember’s head with his big hand.
“Oh, please, he would’ve offered himself, anyway,” Nicolás joked. In response, Ember meowed, enjoying Hagrid’s scratches, with his eyes on Nicolás.
Ten minutes later, people started to arrive at class. Among them, were the Gryffindors, but one picked Nicolás’ eye. Caelum looked like he had a rough night. Under his eyes were small purple hues, and he walked with much less bubbling energy than his character usually did.
He only approached, completely ignoring his surroundings and classmates, and crouched to hug Ember. The Wampus Cat looked at Nicolás, receiving a nod, before licking Caelum’s temples, completely ruining his hair already messy—not that the boy seemed to care, he probably didn't even notice Ember's nuzzlings.
As the rest of the students gathered, five minutes before class, Nicolás crouched to Caelum’s level, a hand squeezing his shoulder.
“Hey, Cae, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Caelum grumbled against Ember’s fur.
“What do you mean ‘nothing’s wrong’? You look like you jumped out of the 'Night of the Living Dead's cast,” Nicolás argued. "And not one of the living ones, let me tell you."
But if his cousin was something, it was stubborn. “I don’t want to speak about it, not now, and not here.”
“I’ll see you at five o’clock by the lake,” Nicolás suggested, even if the wording didn’t sound like a suggestion. Caelum nodded, because he knew that if he was stubborn, Nicolás was even more—something that ran deep in the family.
After that, the class went quite well. Hagrid spoke with property, even if he sometimes asked Nicolás about any minor detail. In general, the class was greatly enjoyed and appreciated. Most of the class took the chance to let Ember into their minds, which mostly ended in approval, only two of the Slytherins elicited Ember’s fur to stand.
Overall, it was a good start of classes. But it was a concerning start for Caelum, and Nicolás would need to see that up close.
•─────⋅☾☽⋅─────•
“Why would your father ask you that?” Nicolás asked in between chuckles, feeling as a soft blush started to creep up his cheeks.
“I don’t know! I couldn’t even finish the letter!” whined Cedric, a mortified expression hanging on his face as his neck and cheeks reddened much harder than Nicolás'.
Nicolás laughed. It had been a show that morning. Even if they had arrived a tad late, breakfast had started and proceeded calmly at the Hufflepuff table, that was, until the owl post arrived, and Cedric opened a letter from his father, Amos. Nobody knew what the letter said, they only knew that five seconds into reading its contents, Cedric was spiting the hot chocolate from his mouth, all over poor Alec.
The next moment, a most mortified Cedric, with cheeks as red as a Phoenix, stormed out of the Great Hall, leaving a chocolate-soaked Alec behind, Nicolás trying to regain his breathing from laughing, and Amara trying to help Alec with Aurora.
“He – he has no right to ask such things!” said Cedric, probably dying in shame of even mentioning the whole thing to Nicolás.
“Ced, he’s your father, of course he has every right to,” Nicolás tried to reason, containing his laugh.
“It was humiliating to read that – that thing!” Cedric grimaced as a shiver ran down his spine at the memory.
To Nicolás it was all a great spectacle. To see someone as normally composed as Cedric—who was the embodiment of calm and innate grace—, stammer over his own words, rosy cheeks, and probably wishing the Earth would take pity on him and just swallow him. It was endearing, it was humanizing, reminding Nicolás of his talk with Cedric in the company of the Graphorns.
Nicolás could only bark in laughter at Cedric's overdramatic expression. With hurried steps, Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached the couple.
“Ced, you can just tell him that—” was Nicolás saying, before noticing their younger and new companions. “Hello, Little One. Ron, Hermione,” he greeted.
“Nico, can I speak with you?” Harry asked, or more likely begged, if his face gave anything. He was pale, probably just as pale as Ron and Hermione.
“Ced—” Nicolás said, before Cedric raised a hand, silently agreeing to leave. After a peck on the cheek and the promise to talk back in their dorm, Cedric turned around. “Ced! Also, you can tell him I said yes, and that my Mom would probably too!”
With red cheeks and alarmingly wide eyes, Cedric shook his head before walking away, close to running. Nicolás was insane if he thought Cedric was going to write his father anything of the sort. For Merlin’s sake, he was fifteen, and Cedric barely sixteen, they agreed on taking their relationship one day at a time, and they were most definitely not going to discuss any sort of betrothal contract, his father must have lost the plot.
Cedric shook his head, even if a smile crept up his lips, and his heart seemed to skip a beat at how sure Nicolás sounded about the whole business of their relationship.
Turning back to his younger companions, Nicolás’ smirk only widened under their flushed cheeks and flabbergasted expressions.
“What did you need to discuss?” Nicolás asked, returning to walk, taking a path towards a more secluded section of the hallway. The others followed without question.
“I – I mean – you take Divination, right?” Harry asked in a small voice.
“I used to take it back at Castelobruxo, yes. Here, I don’t. I only do some homework and have some meetings with my Castelobruxo teacher a few times, just to be ready for my O.W.L.s, why? Did you decide to take it?”
“Yeah, we’re taking it—” Harry said.
“All of you?” Nicolás asked. The three nodded. “Even you?” he asked Hermione. But before she could answer, Ron scoffed, a disconcerted expression on his face.
“She’s taking everything!”
“Everything?” Nicolás asked, looking sharply at Hermione. Ron and Harry nodded; Hermione only blushed. “For the sake of this conversation, I’ll pretend that’s possible, so, Divination you said,” he continued, noticing the golden thread on Hermione’s neck. If it resembled a Time Turner, but Nicolás decided not to comment on it.
“Yes!” Harry exclaimed. “What do you know about the Grim?”
“The Grim? As in the omen of death? Why?”
“Well, we were doing this thing in Divination, with tea leaves,” Ron said, gesturing a cup with his hands.
“Tessomancy, and?” Nicolás prompted.
“Yes, and she – er – she said – what did she say?” Harry asked Ron. The latter coughed, preparing himself.
“My dear,” Ron made his voice hoarser, comically opening his eyes to resemble Trelawney, “you have the Grim. The Grim, my dear, the Grim!” he continued, making his voice even lower to resemble the professor. “The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen — the worst omen — of death!”
Nicolás chuckled at Ron’s dramatic impersonation, looking at the three of them. “Please tell me none of you actually believe that.”
“What!?” Harry pressed.
“Love, this is Tessomancy, even muggle scammers do it to gain a few bills. Trust me, you don’t have to worry about it. There’s no science, and most certainly no magic behind it.”
“See!” Hermione breathed. “I told you it was all a scam.”
“Why did you even take Divination?” Nicolás asked Hermione. “Are you at least taking Arithmancy?” the girl nodded.
“There’s – there’s another thing I need to tell you,” Harry said, before looking at Ron and Hermione. As if they got the message, they said goodbye, before walking away and giving them space to talk.
“What happened?” Nicolás asked.
“It's just that, the Grim. If you’re so sure I won’t be dying in the near future, do you think it has to do with Sirius?”
Nicolás stopped to think for a moment.
“Well, I certainly saw something about Uncle Sirius while stargazing Canis Major, but that was before he escaped bloody Azkaban,” he thought a bit longer.
“There’s also something else,” Harry added. Nicolás raised a questioning brow. “Back at the station, Mr. Weasley spoke to me. He told me that the Ministry thinks Sirius will be coming to Hogwarts for me, to, you know, finish the job.”
“But of course, bloody idiots,” Nicolás cursed. “That’s why the Minister came home, and why the bloody Dementors are parading the school grounds,” he hissed.
“What are we going to do?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know, Little One, I really don’t have any decisive answer for you right now. Just give it time, yeah?”
Harry looked a little bit more at ease now having spoken about the prediction that was bothering him. Seeing the boy’s troubled expression, Nicolás grabbed Harry’s robes and pressed him against his chest, wrapping him with his arms.
The response was almost immediate, Harry’s arms wrapped around him, and the boy pressed his face into his chest. A few rubs on his back later, and Harry was ready again to go back to the world.
•─────⋅☾☽⋅─────•
In the darkness of the unseen, the only things his lethargic senses could grasp were the coldness clasping him down to the core, the salt in the air, and the sound of the harsh waves crashing into the large rocks.
One moment, his eyelids heavied as if they carried the weight of hefty Erumpents, the next one, they were prompted open by an inner instinct he couldn't comprehend.
The scenery in front of him was one he had grown accustomed to in the last couple of days, only today, he was finally on the inside of a cave. Not just any cave. It was the cave. But it wasn’t a vision this time.
It was a magnificently large place. It reminded him of the roof of a synagogue, circular, tall, and bast. From where he was standing, to the front, a path of rock unfolded. It was somehow long, extending until it ended in a structure that resembled a circle.
It was obviously made of rocks, but these rocks seemed to be like small and thin pillars of polished rock. And in the middle, in the highest pillar was what looked like an altar.
The affair always unfolded in the same progression. He would wake up and try to reach the center structure, only to be interrupted by the corpses rising from the water, which dragged him underwater until he drowned and woke up.
He didn’t know how, but he was so overly conscious of this dream. Generally, it all happens like watching a film, but this one was largely vivid. He could feel the humidity from the environment soaking his maroon sweater and the anxiety tingling in his fingertips.
Now, it was within his grasp to finally see how the whole story developed.
One by one, each of his steps reverberated in the space, jumping from wall to wall until they became nothing but echoes of the past. It was so real, that, more than just once, his sneakers slipped on the wet surface of the polished rocks.
As his legs took him near the altar, he saw its top. It was a basin, one like none other he’d ever seen. This one was pristine white, but it seemed to be made of some kind of crystal, or perhaps it was marble, and white quartz was covering one of its sides.
Once in front of the basin, a voice, one not his own, screamed. It sounded like a distant noise, even if he knew it came from close by. It reverberated in the space like his own steps: like echoes of the past.
It may not be his, but it was a voice he knew, the same voice that rudely welcomed him when he first stepped into Grimmauld Place. But deep down, he knew the voice wasn’t speaking to him, he was merely listening to its memory.
“No, Master!” “Kreacher will do it for the Master!” “Please, let Kreacher do it!” “No, Master!”
There was such desperation and pain in those words, that his vision got white in the reflection of the liquid in the basin, ominously moving with the wind. Once he finally looked inside the basin, beneath all the liquid, something gleamed in green.
It was some type of necklace. It was of an old yellowish coffee, but it had a serpent in the middle, embedded with green diamonds, shaping an S. And it struck him a moment later. He’d read of this. That was Slytherin’s Locket.
And instinctively, as if following not his mind, but someone else's, he knew what he had to do. With trembling hands, he took the cold and hard basin and started to drink the water in it. Except it wasn’t simple water. It was a potion.
He barely had time to swallow the last gulp of potion before it hit him. First came the visions. The most horrible visions his mind could ever conjure. From family members lying on their dying beds to the cold corpses of friends. From his family’s Colombian Reserve burning to Hogwarts itself burning. All of the scenes with something in common, the same thing looming in the balefully and unnaturally green sky. A gigantic skull of smoke, and a snake coming from its mouth.
Then came the thirst. The worst thirst he’s ever felt. It didn’t just feel like he swallowed all the sand from a desert, it was a thirst that hurt. From his mouth to his throat, to his stomach. They all ached for water or any kind of liquid.
And in the entire cave, there was only one source of water. One gigantic source of water. The ocean. Or at least the small portion of the ocean that entered the cave, forming some kind of fake lake. He started to walk towards it.
“No, Master!” “Kreacher should have done it!” “Let Kreacher take the Master back!” “No, Master!”
But Kreacher’s desperate voice didn’t stop his aching for water. He dropped to his knees at the edge of the rocks, scooping handfuls of water, and drinking it as if it were liquid gold.
And his ache was seated, until a hand shot from the water. It was slicky, bony, or more likely, skeletal, grey, and rough. With a muted scream, he started to drag his body up the slope of rocks, but it seemed endless. And after the hand came an arm, and the arm was followed by a body, just as grey, and just as skeletal.
And after that one, came another, and another. And soon enough there were hundreds of bodies. Hundreds of Inferi coming for him. And no matter how fast he tried to run, or how many kicks, punches, and jerks he put all his strength into, their skeletal arms didn’t budge, merciless as the one who created them.
They grabbed him, and their nails scratched his skin, scrapping open wounds that bled. Relentlessly, they took him to the water. And in seconds, his vision was nothing but water. Dark water. And they kept dragging him.
He jerked, he punched, he kicked, and the hands didn’t let go. And in torrents, the water filled his stomach, and slowly, his lungs. And as his vision blurred, someone appeared. Only he wasn’t another reanimated skeleton. But a man... or was it a teenager?
It looked so much like him. Like an aged version of himself, but he knew this wasn’t him. Not from the future, and certainly, not someone conjured by his imagination. He had some scars on his face, and his arms. Actually, one of his forearms had some kind of tattoo, like a snake.
Suddenly, all the Inferi were gone, as if chased away by the man's presence. The man grabbed him by the shoulder and yelled, and even under the water, his voice was as clear as day. A voice he’d never heard before, but one he wanted to keep listening to. A voice that spoke to his very being, far deeper than his metaphysical existence in a dream.
“Caelum, you must wake up!”
And with a last harsh inhale of water, Caelum woke up.
He was barely able to jerk his body to the side, before he started to vomit water, clean water, just like it happened in Grimmauld Place.
His three roommates, the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan, were looming over him, with worried expressions.
Sickeningly pale, Caelum turned to see them, noticing they were in their sleeping garments, completely soaked. It took his brain a few seconds to look around, noticing everything was soaked. And there was water flooding their dorm.
“What—” he tried to speak, but his voice was weak and hoarse, and it broke.
“Mate, you flooded us,” said Fred, a smirk creeping up his lips.
“You were summoning water out of everywhere,” added Jordan, as if Caelum was some kind of messiah for having ruined their dorm.
“You were in some kind of trance,” exclaimed George, overexcited. “It was wicked, mate.”
But that didn’t make any sense. He hasn’t had episodes of accidental magic ever since he was seven. It made no sense. First that dream, or rather nightmare, in the cave, now he not only vomited water again, but he flooded the entire dorm by accidentally summoning water.
Even if that all had been a dream, he felt so weak, and his shoulders felt so heavy.
He was barely able to stand up from his bed—the only one dry—before the door was banged open. In, came Professor McGonagall with a horrified and worried expression, with Kenneth Towler in tow—he had probably been the one tasked with collecting her on Caelum's trance.
At the sight of her, his weary body gave up, and he fell face-first into the water puddling on the floor, and slowly, everything became blurry, before black overshadowed everything once more.
•─────⋅☾☽⋅─────•
The school was supposed to be magic—it had been built on magic, after all—, but that didn't explain how the freaking halls were stretching—or perhaps they were moving?— each time his hurried legs turned a corner.
The grey walls seemed to blur around him, and Nicolás barely heard his father’s footsteps behind him. The way to the Hospital Wing never seemed to be so endless.
Turning on one of the corners, he almost crashed with an equally hurried body. Aun María. But he didn’t stop his steps, and neither did the other two.
“Where’s my mom?” Nicolás asked.
“Wizengamot meeting,” María said, quickly falling in step with Nicolás and Remus.
“And you?” Remus questioned. And at last, as if reaching an oasis in the middle of the desert, the damned door of the Hospital Wing appeared.
“My son is in the Hospital Wing, Remus. A bunch of poshy old wizards won’t take priority right now,” María said rashly as she opened the Hospital Wing door.
“Madam Pomfrey,” Nicolás breathed at the sight of the witch. “Caelum—”
“Follow me,” she told them, walking towards a bed, and opening the curtains for them. Inside, Caelum was now sitting, so pale and small, Nicolás felt a pang in his heart.
“Oh, my baby,” Aunt María breathed at the sight of her son.
“Mom,” was all Caelum was able to say before being engulfed in a hug by his mother.
“Oh, Minnie was so worried when she called me,” Aunt María said, cupping Caelum's cheek with her hand.
“I don’t know what happened — I — mom — I haven’t had Accidental Magic since I was seven, I don’t know what happened,” Caelum choked, his body shivering at the memory of whatever he had seen.
María only hushed her son, rubbing circles on his back, and slowly, Caelum seemed to be calming down, and his breathing evened.
While Remus was offering Caelum some chocolate to lift up his spirits, now that the scare was far away, Nicolás started to feel a tug in the back of his mind.
Ember.
Taking a few steps back, in the good conscious that his cousin was now well, Nicolás grasped his necklace’s crest. And he heard him, Ember, calling for him.
After saying goodbye, and under the promise of bringing Caelum food from the kitchens at night, Nicolás walked out, with one destiny in mind, the Forbidden Forest.
The trees in the Forbidden Forest were all towering tall and their trunks competed to be darker ones. Maybe it had been a conscious decision, to make the place creepier, maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe it had been nothing but natural selection at play.
As he walked through the trees, wand in hand, he couldn’t help but wonder, how could he have been so stupid? He was running from the Aurors, and the place he decided to go to was the school accosted by Dementors? Perhaps so many years in Azkaban had actually fried Uncle Sirius’ brain.
Finally arriving at a small clearing, Nicolás saw Ember’s orange fur approaching from a considerable distance. Crossing his arms over his chest and reclining a shoulder on the tree trunk next to him, Nicolás waited.
A few moments later, Ember finally emerged from the foliage, but he wasn’t alone. Next to him was a dog. A black dog the size of a young bear. The Grim himself, personified for everyone to see, ready to terrorize anyone at night.
No wonder Harry was so scared when he saw him. The poor dog looked a day from dying of starvation. His hair looked shaggy, messy, ragged, and in a generally bad condition. And he had a feral aura about him, very distant to the one he remembered Uncle Sirius having more than a decade ago.
“Hello, Uncle Sirius,” Nicolás said, propelling himself from the tree trunk.
The moment the dog saw and heard him, it seemed to inhale sharply and tried to run, but Ember blocked his path. Padfoot gave a hurt and betrayed whine, before facing Nicolás again, his ears flat on his skull.
"Personally, I consider using the spell to transfigure you back less graceful, don't you agree?
Padfoot seemed to think for a moment, looking around for a way out, but everywhere he looked, Ember was already there. Sighing in defeat—if a dog was even of doing such a thing—, Padfoot stood back, and its place, a second later was a man.
And hell, he looked just as shaggy, messy, ragged, and in a generally bad condition as he did in dog form, Nicolás thought with a grimace. Funnily enough, Uncle Sirius was just as overaged due to his time in Azkaban, as Nicolás’ own father was due to his werewolf transformations.
Turning his face away from Nicolás and looking at Ember, Sirius hissed, “Traitor.”
But the Wampus Cat ignored him, padding around Nicolás, before stopping at his side.
Nicolás chuckled. “You really thought he’d be more loyal to you than me? Siri, I rescued him ten years ago. There’s not a single person in this world he’ll ever be more loyal to.”
At the silence, Nicolás walked up to him. Sirius gave a few steps back, before stopping. And in a whim, against all smarts, because this was his Uncle Sirius, the one he’d known ever since he was born, Nicolás jumped on him, feeling how skinny he was, and hugged him, his arms wrapping around the man with the same ferocity as boa constrictors.
He did his best to ignore all the dirt and dust he was covered in, or how disgustingly bad he smelled because his eyes stung from the emotions and the horrible odor.
“Nico—” Sirius said, as Nicolás took distance.
“Are you stupid?!” Sirius flinched at Nicolás’ tone.
“You don’t understand,” Sirius argued.
“No, I don’t! Why the hell are you here?! There’s Dementors searching for you all over the place! You should’ve gone home and wait there!”
“I couldn’t find it,” Sirius said softly, fists clenched.
“I know! I change the wards myself,” Nicolás groaned.
“You don’t get it, Nico. He’s here. He’s at Hogwarts,” Sirius insisted. And Nicolás was remembered what Harry said. Mr. Weasley claimed people heard Sirius repeating that very same thing manically, ‘He’s at Hogwarts.’
“And, who the hell is ‘he’? Harry?”
“No! Peter! He’s at Hogwarts!”
“Pettigrew?” Nicolás asked, aghast.
Moving, Sirius took out a newspaper from his clothes. The Daily Prophet. And showed Nicolás an image of the Weasley family on their holidays in Egypt last summer. He pointed at the rat on Ron’s shoulder.
“That’s Scabbers,” Nicolás tried to argue, before stopping, facepalming himself. “How could I be so stupid? That fucking rat’s been alive ever since Percy came to Hogwarts. No common garden rat lives more than five years.”
Was this what Milo tried to tell him, when he showed him his pre-cognitive vision? Nicolás remembered vividly the rat on a boy’s shoulder in the Demiguise’s vision.
But how — how had he not noticed Pettigrew's name on the Marauder's Map copy he made? It was true that he wasn't some kind of creep who watched where Harry was 24/7, and it was also true that Ron didn't carry his rat around. Maybe it wasn't so weird he had missed it out entirely.
“I need to find him,” Uncle Sirius pleaded.
“Yeah, get in line for that,” Nicolás grumbled. “You’re in no condition to do anything, anyway. You don’t even have a wand.” He stopped to think. “Let’s do this: you keep hiding for a few days, I’ll be bringing you food at the Shrinking Shack, and you don’t do anything stupid.”
“I can’t just sit and wait!”
“Yeah, well, too bad for you. I don’t think they’ll be happy to let an accused mass murderer into a school with children. Not to mention everyone thinks you came to kill Harry or Caelum.”
Sirius looked as if he had been whipped by that. “I would never hurt Harry, least of all my own son!”
“Yeah, well, they don’t care what you think, Sirius!”
Sirius opened his mouth a few times, only to shut it each time, finding nothing to make his case. Even a stubborn ass like his knew when to relent, or at least Nicolás hoped he did.
“Good chat, now I need to go back to Caelum,” Nicolás said. And he saw how Sirius’ face lighted up at the mention of his son.
“What — something happened with Caelum?” Sirius asked, worry all over his face.
“He’s having nightmares, but it’s under control for now,” Nicolás explained. “I really need to go, but I’ll be back with food for you tomorrow.”
After another hug and a few Tergeo cast on him, leaving Sirius cleaner than he’s been in probably years, Nicolás walked back to the castle, not imagining how everything would go straight to hell in only days, because he was too naive thinking Sirius knew when to relent.
⋆｡°✩°｡⋆
Author's note
Sooo, I've always envisioned Nicolás talking about Ember just like I walk about my cats, or any proud pet-parent would do 🥺🥺
Also, the dream sequence??? I spent hours perfecting it to my liking! There are so many small Easter eggs on that one! Did you catch any? Theories on the man in the water??? 👀👀👀
And Sirius' first appearance????? Loved it, we'll see how that one evolves 💜
Thank you so much for being here! This is the extra update I promised on Valentine's Day; it's not romantic, but an update anyway 💜
Every comment, vote, and follow are always appreciated!
- 𝐣.𝐟. 𝐜. 🐼💜