The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Loads of Chocolate Frogs

Loads of Chocolate Frogs

James and Sirius were in the library. Madam Pince, the librarian, eyed them suspiciously as they moved through the shelves, looking at the dusty spines of books. It wasn't a usual occurance to find the two of them in there, especially without Remus, and she was going to keep an eye on them, to be sure they weren't up to any mischief. They weren't, though, so she was having quite a boring watch of it.

"There's no such thing as a wolf language," said James, following as Sirius led the way through the shelves. "It's not like learning Italian or French, there isn't a textbook on speaking in Bark."

Sirius said, "There's got to be a spell or something that could make it possible..."

James sighed.

Sirius had shared his thought with James about how talking to Remus in his wolfish form might help him to remember himself and cut back on some of the injuries that their mate inevitably returned with from the Shrieking Shack each month. "If only we could ask Madam Pince, I'm sure she would know where to look for a spell like that," Sirius murmured, pulling a book about caring for magical creatures down from the shelf and flipping through it, hoping for a chapter on communication. The book held everything from fang cleaning to M.O.M. classifications but nothing about how to go about learning to talk in your pet's language. He jammed the book back on to the shelf.

"She'd want to know why we want to talk to a wolf," James argued, "And what're we supposed to tell her? It's not as though there's wolfs walking 'round the castle everyday."

"Well, in a way there is," Sirius said with a smirk.

"Yes, but we can talk to him regular when he is," James said. He leaned against the shelves behind Sirius, his eyes scanning the titles as Sirius pulled another volume down. "The only way to speak in the animal tongue is to be an animal," he said.

Sirius paused. "Wait. Say that again."

James looked at him with a question on his brow. "What?"

"Say that again."

"What? The only way to speak in animal tongue is to be an animal?"

Sirius slammed the book shut, "That's it. Merlin's beard that's it." He darted away down the aisle and out of the section on magical beasts and ducked 'round the corner without any further explanation.

James stood upright and followed after him, confused, glancing down each aisle between the shelves, trying to find where Sirius had gone. Finally, he found him back in the section on Transfiguration. "What was that all about?" James asked, looking up at the tomes that filled the shelves. "What are you looking for now?"

"You're brilliant, James," Sirius said, grinning, "If we're going to talk to Remus when he's a wolf, then we need to be wolves ourselves... We need to transfigure ourselves."

James looked warily at Sirius, "You can't transfigure a human into an animal. You need to be able to keep your wits about you and if you transfigure yourself, you'd be like to lose your human abilities."

"Yes, if we straight up transfigured ourselves we would," Sirius agreed. He spotted the title he needed up on the top shelf and he quickly climbed up on the lower shelves to reach it. James held a hand up to catch him in case he fell.

"Be careful, will you? Pince will murder us if you fall and break your neck in here," James hissed.

Sirius grabbed the book and jumped back down to the floor and held the book up for James to see.