A Pint-sized Point of View

Playing with Padfoot

Emma didn’t like the full moon. Her dad would get tired and grouchy, and would send her off to some neighbor’s house for the evening. He always talked about how nice the neighbors were, but Emma didn’t think they were very nice at all. They wrinkled their noses at her threadbare clothes and tried to force toys and food on her. She may be five, but she wasn’t stupid. No one just so happened to have lots of toys ‘lying around that it would be a shame for them to go to waste.’ And no one really had ‘all of this food that’s about to go bad; if you and your daddy don’t eat it, it’ll be thrown out.’ The food wasn’t even close to the expiration date. Her daddy had taught her about expiration dates. She’d suggested he teach the neighbors too, and he’d laughed quietly and ruffled her hair.

She supposed that it was odd she didn’t like all of the free food and toys. She knew the neighbors were trying to be nice, but all of the free stuff made her dad look sad. Emma thought it was because he wished he were the one to give her the stuff—she knew he had a hard time finding work—so to make him feel better, she made a point to always play with the toys he had gotten her the most, and to act like the watered-down soups they had most nights were her favorite dishes. Her dad was a wizard, so she told herself that everything he gave her was magical and therefore infinitely superior to anything anyone else could give her. So what if Susie Thomas down the road had new light-up sneakers? Her dad could make light out of air.

“Emma,” her dad called, “are you ready to go?”

The little girl finished putting on her coat and ran up to her dad. “All ready.”

Remus smiled and bent down to pick her up, but she took a large step backwards. “No daddy, I’m a big girl, I can walk it,” she said, solemnly.

Remus had to fight down a snort at her serious face. “You sure? It’s a long walk to the neighbors.”

Emma nodded. Her dad was much too tired to worry about carrying someone as big as she was. She slipped her hand inside his larger one, and they started the trek.

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The day after the full moon ticked by slowly, each second feeling like an hour. Remus spent the entire day in bed, resting. Some days frightened Emma because her dad looked so worn that if he fell asleep, she didn’t think he could wake back up. She’d sneak up into his room to watch his chest rise and fall and to feel his heartbeat drum at his wrist. She always left her second favorite toy, a stuffed deer named Prongs at his side for company (her favorite toy was her stuffed wolf Moony, Prongs’s friend, but she thought he’d had enough of wolves for the time being).

Emma wasn’t supposed to go outside while her dad was sleeping, but she liked to think of this as more of a suggestion than an actual rule. She sprawled out under her favorite shady tree, waving Moony threw the air (he was ‘super-Moony’ right now) when she heard a low whine. Looking up, she gasped in shock, Moony slipping out of her grasp. Standing in front of her was a huge, bear –like animal covered in thick, matted black fur. Emma froze, trying to remember what her dad had told her about wild animals. Were you supposed to run or play dead?

‘Emma, don’t go near wild animals.’ ‘Emma, don’t touch that!’ ‘Emma Lily Lupin, you put that squirrel down this instant!!!’

It was strange how adults would warn and warn you to avoid a situation but never actually told you what to do once you found yourself in the situation. Emma settled with the playing dead option. She’d hear a boy say once that you played dead when you didn’t want a bear to eat you, and this dog might as well have been a bear. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, and tried to hold her breath, being as still as a five-year old possibly could be.