Never Letting Go [A Marauder's Story]

Close Encounters

When Sirius and Grant returned with armfuls of firewood, Remus was just relieved that Sirius hadn't murdered Grant on the journey there or back.

They both set the wood on the ground and James started to organise them from smallest to largest. He was clearly the unappointed leader of the group and in any other occasion, Remus would've immediately said that Sirius was the right hand man but, in this scenario it really didn't look like it.

James and Grant were rarely away form each other and Remus could see the red of anger that would creep up onto Sirius' face when he saw them together. Sirius wasn't great at staying calm and not being jealous, because the way he saw it, he was always James' right hand man.

"You said we had a long day ahead" Peter's voice came from inside the tent and James grinned. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

"Well" said James, clapping his hands together with a mischievous glint in his eye "today we're going to teach Grant magic"

Remus was sipping a cup of tea, thanks to the emergency teabags Peter packed, and choked on it. Sirius who was now next to him patted his back.

"What?!" Remus asked, completely bewildered. "Surely that's not possible"

"Muggles can be wizards Remus" James reminded him.

"Yes but if he showed signs of magic, then Dumbledore would've sent him a Hogwarts letter and he'd know by now" Remus argued and Sirius nodded from beside him. Hearing all of the noise Peter hurried out of the tent, just as shocked as the other two.

"Yes but if Grant is going to stay here he needs to know how to defend himself" James pointed out "Even if it's aiming a wand and saying a spell"

"James if he has no magic then he can't do spells, that's just common sense" Sirius said with raised eyebrow, wondering here James was going with this.

"But wands already contain magic" James explained "In muggle studies they taught us that Muggles can't necessarily use magic but with a wand they could produce some but rather uncontrollably. So what if we can teach Grant?" James said, hoping they'd all be on board.

"Absolutely not"

"Not gonna happen"

"Are you mental?"

Came all 3 voices at once. 

"If it's not possible James then there are plenty of other ways to defend myself. I've fought off enough homophobic bullies in my day" he said with a shrug and James' shoulders slumped.

"How about we give it a go" Grant said, trying to cheer James up "And if it doesn't work it doesn't work"

"It won't work" Sirius said under his breath but this didn't stop Grant from trying lift James' spirits. This seemed to bring the spark back into James' eyes and his smile returned.

"Well whilst you two try to change the rules of magic, I'll set up a new layer of protective enchantments. Magic is unpredictable in this forest and I'm not risking the enchantments breaking" Sirius said, standing up and making his way across the twigs and towards the far end of trees, raising his wand and muttering the incantations.

........................................

"Have you seen James?" Peter asked, interrupting Remus' solitude of reading. Remus looked up at his friend who looked bored out of his mind. They had already spent over 2 weeks in the tent and it was clearly getting to Peter.