This thread begins immediately after the events of the first-year history class in Fathom the Fathoms. Open to anyone who might have attended that class and anyone else interested in the surrounding area.

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The moment their self-propelled boats thumped against the shore, Teddy Lupin hopped onto dry land and shook out his soaked green hair. Their talk with the mer-kids of the lake had been a ton of fun, but it'd also been very wet, with barely a single first year spared the splash-attacks or curious webbed hands of their visitors. At least nobody had actually fallen overboard. That would't have been any fun.

Ted kept his usual smile bright and firm as he swept his hair back out of his eyes and set about wringing the muck out of his clothes. "Glad we don't have any classes after this," he said to no one in particular. "All I want right now is a nice warm bath and some time to dry up before we all shriv--"

A gust of wind from the direction of the Forbidden Forest cut him off in mid-sentence. It rustled the bare tree branches with their newly-budded leaves, which crackled in the distance like the beginning of a fire. Here on the lake's edge the air was humid and smelled of lake-sludge, but for a brief moment the wind cleared all that way, carrying a new scent in its place. It smelled of burning leaves.

Teddy drew a gasp in through his nose. He knew that scent, and now that he'd recognized it, he also knew the familiar feeling that he was being watched. Both were sensations he'd known for years, but never here, and never in this context.

Abandoning his previous thought, Ted turned his eyes towards the distant treeline of the Forbidden Forest. There, on the very edge of the shadows, he could just make out the shape of a black puppy and the soft, steady burn of his ember eyes.

"Padfoot?"

Roland Dylanis clambered back onto shore right behind Ted, slightly glad that he was off the lake and back on solid land. The feeling of hard ground beneath his feet never felt so good after being in those rickety boats, especially considering how awkward it was to haul Lupin out of the water he'd slipped into during their little trip. Rou was initially going to just be on his way when he passed by Ted and saw the kid standing stiff as a board with his eyes focused intently on the treeline of the Forbidden Forest.

Rou sidled up beside his classmate and followed the boy's eyes and caught the same glimpse of the small puppy in the distance. The burning ember eyes of the dog caused Rou to realize just what it was: A grim! The boy's eyes grew wide in an instant and he reached back and grasped the hilt of his father's old dagger in its sheathe on the back of his waistband. With his spare hand, Rou drew out his wand, for even though his grandfather said that the whole "Death Omen" stigma wasn't necessarily true with the Grim creature, they were still very dangerous animals even in their young stages.

"Um...Ted?" said Rou, looking over at his classmate. 

Class was over now, so how did Aoife Moffett do today?

'That went...kinda well.' Aoife thought to herself as she sat down to take her soaking wet shoes and socks off. The lesson was interesting, which was weird since it was a History of Magic class, but Aoife got soaked from the mer-boy splashing her several times during the lesson.

She had taken her soaking wet shoes and socks off before she shivered as a gust of wind blew through her thick, wet hair, followed by a strange smell. She looked in the direction of the smell and saw the treeline of the Forbidden Forest. Aoife shivered, whether it was from the cold water or the feeling of something in the Forbidden Forest noticing her, she didn't know.

She looked slightly over before seeing two of her classmates. Lupin and Rou. She smiled, thinking that maybe she and Rou could hang out before she noticed they were staring at something. She tried to look in the same direction as them, but all she could see was the Forbidden Forest and...what was that small thing? It looked a little bit like a puppy, but no puppy Aoife had ever seen had eyes like that.

"What is that thing?" Aoife asked out loud, more to herself than to the two boys near her.

"Probably one of Donovan's crups," said Aaron, getting up from the tree against he had been sitting and tucking a book beneath his arm. 

He regarded the first year, decided she wasn't going to bite, and grinned widely.  "Took that class second year.  Different teacher, but same beasts.  Can I ask you a question?"  The sixth year didn't wait for an answer.  "Did Jowd change the curriculum, or did he just go insane?  I bet half of you kiddies can't even swim!"  He looked the little red head up and down. 

"Betcha you can, though.  I betcha you're a right little fireball."  He was enjoying this, he discovered to his surprise.  Aaron had come out of the castle during his free period in hopes of forcing some knowledge into his brain, but he had ended up staring into the distance as always, thinking about girls and what dinner would be and definitely not potions homework.  This kid would be a nice little addition to his afternoon of procrastination.

"Aaron," he said, nodding at the girl.

Aoife looked over to the tree, surprised that she didn't see him sooner. After all he was bigger than her, though not as big as some of the other boys Aoife had seen at Hogwarts. She was about to say yes to the boy's first question when he asked another.

"It's better than sitting in a classroom. Plus, we got to talk to mer-kids." Aoife smiled before saying, "I don't know how many of the others can swim, no one fell in. But Lupin got knocked to the bottom of the boat, twice."

Aoife looked down, her face beginning to heat up.

"Yeah." She said, "My aunts taught me how to swim when I stayed with them over the summer." She looked up.

"Aaron. I'm Aoife." She nodded back before looking at Rou and Lupin.

"What's a crup? Does it look like...Whatever that is?" She asked Aaron.

"Sort of.  More like a Jack Russell Terrier, but what else can it be?"  Aaron saw her blushing and mistook her embarrassment at being talked to by an older student.  "Oooh you think it's the Grim, don't you!"  He looked over to the other first years nearby, recognizing one as a Gryffindor.  Lupin was his name, he thought.  Aaron wondered if he had any relations to the famed werewolf from the battle of Hogwarts; he had never bothered to ask.

Ted moved forward, but he'd barely taken two steps before the puppy dropped his front legs into a clearly defensive position. Ted stopped. His eyes slid over at the first mutter of his name and focused on the wand in Dylanis's hand.

"It's all right," he said, lifting a placating hand. "He's not dangerous. He's a friend." He smiled in a way that he hoped was soothing. "I think you're scaring him."

A mix of anticipation and excitement sent his heart pounding. It crossed his mind that the situation might not be what he thought. Padfoot II was supposed to be in Godric's Hollow, or at the Ministry with Harry. But that was pushed out by the same utter certainty that helped him recognize his own reflection no matter what form he'd taken. Besides, it wasn't like a normal dog that age could have survived a trip through the Forbidden Forest. It had to be him.

The call from the sixth-year by the tree made Ted jump. He looked away for just a moment and by the time he turned back the puppy was gone. "Ah...! Where'd he go?" He turned on the spot, but the creature had vanished as quickly as it came, flickering away like a shadow on a bright day. Ted frowned at the sixth-year, put off that he'd lost track of his friend. "He's not a crup. I don't know what he is, but he's not a crup, and he's not a normal dog. He's just...Padfoot."

The scent of burning leaves with a hint of sulfur drifted towards them on the wind. This time it came from much closer -- the boathouse, standing opposite to Doyle's tree. It was dark inside and the door stood slightly ajar.


((OOC: Please feel free to NPC Padfoot II! His personality is more feline than canine, so he'll keep his distance until properly coaxed out. He never barks, but he may growl at your character if they get too close too quick. So feel free to use him as much as you'd like.))

Rou's head snapped back along with Ted's to see that the Grim had disappeared. His classmate's familiarity with the animal, however, reassured Rou and helped him to ease his hand from the hilt of his dagger and put away his wand. His breathing lost its intensity and he relaxed, now, even though it was rather disconcerting how quickly the Grim was able to slip away from the group's sight.

"No, that's no crup," Rou said softly, agreeing with Ted, "That dog was a Grim. My grandfather told me a bit about them when I was younger. I think he mentioned them as we were passing through an old battlefield or something in Scotland while on holiday. They enjoy sticking around places where death and suffering have polluted the air. Hogwarts saw a lot of that some years ago..."

Aoife looked at the three boys, surprised.

"A grim?" She asked. "Those are only supposed to be at churchyards, right? Why is one near the Forbidden Forest?"

She looked at Lupin. "Padfoot, I could have sworn I heard that name before...It makes a good dog's name." She said before looking to Rou. With how nice things seemed at Hogwarts, she had honestly forgotten that a large battle had taken place soon after she was born.

"Right..." She muttered before she caught a whiff of the scent again. She once again looked in the direction of the scent and saw the boathouse. She had never been in there before. A part of her wondered what would the inside look like, but...

"We're not allowed in the boathouse, are we?" She asked, her bare feet beginning to become caked in mud from her clicking her heels together.

"Who cares?" said Aaron.  He couldn't believe he was spending his afternoon with three first years, but more often than not, he was so bored with his school work anything would be better.  Besides, why would he turn down a nice ripe mystery like this one?

Oh boy, he thought.  I'm getting excited about some burning homework.  It was too late now to take back his nonchalant disregard of school rules, however, so he turned on his heel and lead the way to the boathouse, half hoping the kids wouldn't follow so he could duck away back into the castle and find some pillow to punch to restore his manliness.

"I could have sworn I heard that name before...It makes a good dog's name."

"I guess so." Ted shrugged. "You could say he's named for an old friend of the family."

As the discussion turned to breeds and death, Ted steeled his expression and headed for the boathouse at a bit of a jog. Truth be told, the grim theory made certain sense. He'd met Padfoot at the cemetery, after all. But he didn't like thinking about Hogwarts as a place of death. His first full moon here he'd had awful nightmares about what had happened to his parents on these grounds. Thinking about it further than that made him sick to his stomach.

He pushed open the boathouse door without sparing a thought for the rules barring entrance to first-years. Inside, the last of the magical boats gradually drifted back into their places, silent and empty. It smell of mold and birds, though the seagulls that usually haunted the dock were nowhere to be seen. There were no lights save for the windows, leaving the walls and floor draped in log shadows. And there, crouched beneath an awning draped with old cloth, was the dog.

Ted took a few quiet steps into the house before taking a knee and extending his arm to beckon. "Padfoot. C'mon, Pads, it's okay. Come here."

Aoife looked at Lupin. His expression was unreadable to her. Her eyes widened slightly before going back into a slight squint as Lupin began to jog toward the boathouse. She quickly jogged after him.

'What's he doing? We're not allowed to go to the boathouse! I don't think so anyway...But he can't go alone.' Aoife thought to herself. She thought about calling out to him, but she doubted that Lupin would listen to her. He seemed too focused on finding his...Was it really a puppy?

'Never mind about that.' She thought again before finally catching up with Lupin at the boathouse. She watched him push open the door and squinted even further. This was against the rules, and Aoife knew she might get in trouble if she stayed with him. But...Lupin couldn't do this alone.

'What if he got hurt here?' She thought, trying to justify breaking a kind-of big rule. She slowly stepped into the boathouse. It was then that she saw the "puppy". She gasped as she saw its eyes

Rou followed closely behind Aoife and Ted, quickly trying to bring himself to-pace with the pair of them as Ted pushed open the doors to the boathouse. Roland didn't reach for his dagger or wand this time, as Ted's familiarity with the grim puppy meant that, well, it probably wasn't going to attack, and so Rou wouldn't have to be too concerned about Aoife getting in over her head or anything. Instead, he leaned against one of the boathouse doors and kept a close eye on Lupin as he beckoned toward the puppy in order to coax it out from within. Roland thought, briefly, about pulling out his wand and lighting it in order to give some better lighting to the darkened boathouse, but he didn't want to risk provoking the scared little grim puppy into attacking.

Slowly, the black pup crawled out from the corner and approached them, still wearily eyeing everyone who didn't have green hair. It padded over on soft feet that seemed too big for its body. Now that it grew closer, they could see the bandage wrapped around its left hind leg. That eliminated the few doubts that remained in Ted's mind. It was exactly as Harry's letters described.

Ted glanced briefly at his human companions. He'd never met Padfoot around other people before and didn't know what the animal would do if he felt trapped. Dylanis was a bit jumpy and Moffett excitable, but he trusted them well enough. It was the sixth year, Doyle, who made him nervous, by virtue of not knowing the boy.

Still, the dog crept closer without raising a stink, and soon enough Ted felt the familiar soft muzzle press against the underside of his palm. Padfoot closed its red eyes and nuzzled into the boy's hand. Ted smiled, rubbing its head and coaxing the dog closer. "There you go, see? It's all right, we're all friends here."