The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

An Integral Role

The Marauders kept a very close eye on Mr. Frek, and so did Regulus. Every couple days, Kreacher would appear in the boys dormitory with a report from Regulus, given quite grudgingly. "My Master says that the nasty filth which teaches at this school has shown no change of heart - filthy halfbreed loving scum, if my Mistress knew what sort of muck they have in this place she would -"

"Finally have the coronary that I've been praying for half my life," Sirius interjected. "We don't need your commentary, elf, only your bleedin' report!"

"Oh be nice to him!" Lily snapped, rolling her eyes ar Sirius. "It is entirely arbitrary that elves are seen as lesser than man. Just imagine if the tables were switched!"

"If I was an elf, you mean?" Sirius scoffed. "I'd bloody chop my own head off for Mother's collection before I followed her manky directions!"

James was more bothered by the lack of information turning up than he was whether Kreacher grumbled nearly incoherently every time he visited the Gryffindor dorm rooms. It was far more concerning that, despite the fact they knew Frek had gone to the woods and lost his scarf in some kind of blood battle, nothing had changed at all. Frek was apparently completely unscathed. Sirius's insistent refrain was that he must be a fake Frek, like the year before when there had been a fake James. However, there didn't seem to be any change about Frek, whose myriad of ticks and stutters were all accounted for and extremely hard to imitate (Sirius had tried many times while doing his infamous parodies of the Hogwarts staff).

"Obviously, there is some other explanation," Lily said, interrupting yet another theatrical display of Sirius's opinion on the subject as they sat about the Marauders dormitory one evening. "If it isn't that he's been Polyjuiced --"

"I still say he is!" Sirius barked.

"He's clearly NOT," James argued instantly.

"-- then something else is going on!" Lily shouted this last bit over the two boys, who shut up immediately. They knew better than to make Lily raise her voice; that lesson had been well learned with a whole mass of bat-bogeys flying out of both their noses and a flareup of Lily's stubbornness as she refused to remedy them. They'd spent the better part of an evening with bogeys flying out of their nose holes as a result. "But what? That's the question," Lily mused in the silence she'd caused.

"Maybe you ought to ask Dumbledore," Remus said, looking at James. "Frek is a part of the Order, perhaps Dumbledore knows what is going on."

"I'm in the meetings where things get planned, though, Rey," James reminded him with a sigh. "If something was planned by the Order, I'd know about it already. I don't want to bother Dumbledore. I mean, there's a chance there isn't even anything actually going on here, isn't there? It could all be in our heads and entirely explainable without any foul play at all."

"We know that Greyback was in the forest, though," Remus said. "So if Dumbledore and the Order didn't plan any action then they must not know about that, either, and he ought to know that part at least then!"

"Yeah? And how do I explain how we know about Greyback being in the forest?" James challenged, "Do I just tell him we were waltzing about in animagus form and -"

"Tell him Regulus told you," Sirius said, "Let that little twat explain how he came to know about it!"

James shook his head, "No, we can't let anyone know that Regulus was involved or told us anything at all. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous! What do you think Dumbledore's going to do? Hex him on the spot? Dumbledore understands double agent stuff - I'm sure he's got loads of double agents masquerading about in You Know Who's command."