The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

Rock Hard and Beautiful

"Well," Remus said the next day, putting the pocket watch down on his desk and leaning back in his chair, exhausted, "It doesn't seem as though anything funny's been done to this watch, and it doesn't appear to be a duplicate. None of the dark magic detection charms turned anything up, either." He stared at the watch for a long moment. "I think your socks have done the trick, Padfoot."

"Smelly feet one, bad guys nothing," Sirius said, grinning from where he was laying upended on Remus's bed, his feet propped up on the headboard, head hanging over the side of the bed, with his hair wildly flowing to the floor.

James waved a hand in the general direction of Sirius's feet, "It isn't just bad guys you're taking out with those things... Good gods, mate, what do you do, soak your feet in sewage?" He, too, was laying on Remus's bed, though with his legs bent at the knees over the footboard and his head alongside Sirius's over the side.

Peter was sitting on his own bed, toying with his deck of Tarot.

Sirius's head rolled to look at James. "You know I like it dirty, Prongs."

Remus turned and started picking up the assortment of books he'd assembled on the desk while working on checking the validity of the pocket watch. "So if he wasn't giving up the watch, then what was Mr. Frek doing out in the woods? And what did Greyback want from him, if not the watch?"

"Dunno," James said. He turned his eyes to the ceiling, hands crossed over his chest, and allowed his mind to freefall over the events of the past twenty-four hours, of Regulus's arrival at the Shrieking Shack and the search through the woods for Greyback and his henchman. James thought about the scarf, bloodied and torn, and the story Regulus had told about feeding the Bowtruckles.

Sirius suddenly somersaulted off the bed and onto the floor, scrambling to his feet and going over to collect the watch from the desk. "I dunno what the plan was this time, or if it was even a real risk, but I'll tell you what - I'm finished with this wondering if it's the real watch or not and if it's been switched out and all this rubbish." He carried the watch to his trunk, pushed open the lid, and rummaged about.

"What're you doing?" Remus asked, a bit of concern on his face. "If you mark it, that'll just be replicated by any spellwork anyway and --"

"Yes, but this won't be," Sirius said, emerging from his trunk with one of the two broken bits of mirror. "Not only will it not replicate," Sirius said, "But if anyone takes the thing, we'll see precisely who it is that has got it the moment they look on the inside." He was very pleased with this and he sat down at his desk, knocking several text books and dirty shirts aside, stirring up a good amount of dust that had settled on the unused furniture.

James sat up. "Brilliant!" he declared.

"The Tarot confirms that's the real Potter watch, by the way," Peter spoke up from the bed.

The other three looked at him.

"Sorry, sometimes it takes a minute to figure out how best to word things," Peter said, flushing, realizing he was late to the discussion. "What are you lot working on?"

"Modification," Sirius replied. He waved his wand and the mirror seemed to become a liquid pool that floated over into the open door of the watch and settled into the place opposite the clock face before resolidifying and once again reflecting the view from the other mirror, which happened to be showing the inside of James's night stand drawer. "Voila!" Sirius announced, quite proud of himself.

Remus looked surprised. "And where the bloody hell did you learn how to do that?"

Sirius grinned. "You aren't the only one capable of reading a book you know, Moonpie."