maple syrup | remus lupin [1]

137. healers & serums

NOBODY HAD TOLD Peter that they weren't supposed to go to Maple manor that night to rescue Claudia.

Absolutely nobody.

The boy painfully realised this as he stood at the edge of the forest near the manor, feeling both incredibly cold and incredibly freaked out due to being alone in such a dangerous place.

I'm going to get them back for this, Peter thought to himself, trying to come with a solid way to prank them as he waited and hoped for them to show up.

But, no trace of the three remaining Marauders would be shown any time soon, considering that Remus was locked up in his room as he paced back and forth with nothing but Claudia's plans for the night on his mind, and as James and Sirius - much to the dislike of Euphemia - played quidditch in the dark night without even so realising that they had forgotten to owl Peter about the change of plans, which Remus had specifically asked them to do.

Peter was mere seconds away from giving up and apparating away - the boy was finally seventeen - until he spotted a strange flickering light from the grass just nearby.

He couldn't see anything else, considering how dark it was, but the orangey flickery light a few yards away from him caught his attention and he immediately got curious to see what it was.

However, there was no way he was going to near it and check out what it was. Well, that's the decision Peter made at first.

But then, as he finally took notice of the fact that Louisa, who had been standing outside as she smoked a cigarette and ignored the passed out girl in front of her, had apparated away, he immediately felt a little more comfortable with checking out the source of the light.

So Peter decided - after far too long - to act upon the house he had been sorted into and go towards the flickering light that was just far too intriguing.

And thank Merlin he did just that.

Because, you see, the source of the light was no other than the bracelet that Claudia, who was passed out in the grass, was wearing.

And why was it flickering?

Well, it could only be explained in one simply sentence.

The friendship between Mary and Claudia was dying, and that was because Claudia was dying.

Now, this was the last thing Peter had expected to find out as he neared the light, wand in hand. At first, the boy assumed that it was some strange animal, a random object with some magic in it or anything really other than Claudia's non-breathing body.

But, nonetheless, that's exactly what he found there in the grass.

At first, there was nothing but the sound of Peter's breath hitching in his throat, because he couldn't understand who that even was that was laying by his feet.