Foundation
Foundation
First:
Peter is the decent sort, his mother says; he makes friends easily. Like how Remus Lupin and him became friends just the night after being sorted, too wary of the other boys. Or like how when Sirius Black called him "Mudblood" last month, James Potter defended him, said "he's still better than you," and hexed Black; they've been friends since, sort of. Sometimes, James and Peter get together, talk of spells to cast on Black, but he always has a counter-curse ready.
"You're the decent sort, Pete," James tells him, fretfully gawking at Peter as he tap-dances uncontrollably. "Ignore him."
Second:
Remus' ill-fated relatives have never seemed strange to Peter, at least no stranger than how Sirius never mentions his parents, or how James sleeps clutching a teddy bear; everyone is weird somehow.
He's never given Remus much thought, Peter realises suddenly. He's just, well... there. Quietly present. Remus watches, providing advice when Sirius and James ask for it but never volunteering too much information, never wanting too much attention.
Now, James and Sirius at his side as they confront Remus about his absences and his dead relatives and the myriad cuts on his arms every month, it's very clear why.
-
Sirius, very few mothers would say, is the decent sort. Peter isn't so sure his own mother would approve, as Sirius is crazy, obviously.
"We should do it," Sirius says, cocky. "We could do it, you know."
"Yeah," James agrees. "We're smart enough."
"We'll help you with the tougher bits, Peter," Sirius grins, and Peter wonders if he's offering out of genuine goodwill or because he can''t help but think 'Mudblood' when he sees him, little Peter who won't manage the Animagus transformation on his own.
Peter, he may be a bit slow on the reflexes, but he's not stupid.
Third:
Sometimes, Peter wants to be Sirius.
It's not that he thinks, given the same chances, the same things, I'd do a better job at being Sirius Black, or I want to be Sirius instead of Sirius, but that he wishes it were James and him, like it is James and Sirius. Sort of, anyhow, because Peter doesn't know that he has it in him to hex Snape like Sirius does, so viciously.
Not that he's ever had a chance to know, relegated as he is every time to duelling Rosier and Goyle, both of them deemed slow enough for him.
-
It seems stupid now, aged thirteen, but when he was seven his parents took him to the zoo once, and there, in the reptile house, Peter fell in love for the first time.
Not with a blonde, blue-eyed girl, or with a doe-eyed brunette, or with any girl, really, but with the sinuous grace of the snakes lazily coiled around tree branches; with the idea of being the one who got to handle them.
After that, he always wanted a snake, but his parents always said no.
He's gotten over it, though. Care of Magical Creatures does the trick nowadays.
-
The House Cup was so very close, it was almost theirs -- until the last moment, when Snape, Malfoy, Rossier and Sirius' cousins found him one night on his way back from the kitchens.
James and Sirius' retaliation was inventive, earning them a month of detentions (to carry over to next year). It also cost them 125 points that saw the Great Hall decked in the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw the last day of term.
The way the other Gryffindors glared at him, Peter would've spent the whole summer scrubbing other people's cauldrons, if it meant getting those points back.
Fourth:
"Hola, Peter," says Lily Evans, who discovered Majorca over the summer and came back greeting everyone in broken Spanish, complaining about lousy translations and how it's originally spelled Quijote, and not Quixote, as it's been rendered in English.
"Hello, Evans," Peter replies, tone not casually studied to sound charming and confident like James'. It's funny, Peter thinks, how people who won't speak to James or Sirius, too dazzled or annoyed by them, will still speak to him.
Peter, he's more approachable. He's lost count of the number of girls who've asked him what the best way to seduce Sirius is.
-
"You know what we should do?" Sirius asks one night, wickedly.
"What?" Remus asks warily, probably hoping the answer doesn't include the words 'Snivellus' and 'hex'
"Make a map," he answers, "of the whole castle."
James stares at him like he's lost it, and Peter must confess he's missing the point too. "What the fuck for?" James asks.
"Not a normal map, idiot," Sirius explains. "A magical one, that shows everything," and the way he says it, the idea is suddenly appealing and brilliant.
"It could show everyone too," Peter suggests, rather spur-of-the-moment.
Grinning, Sirius turns to him. "It could."
-
Peter's two sisters, Anna and Katherine, used to constantly tease him when growing up, affectionate but merciless all the same. Peter would not so much retaliate as stoicly suffer and then fail to think of ways to fight back.
But after that trip to the zoo, when his parents bought him a fake plastic snake, he started to leave it underneath their pillows, so that they'd find it when going to bed.
Their screams, first of fright and then of outrage, never stopped being funny, as he hid not only from their anger, but also from that of their parents.
-
Peter always delivers messages to Sirius and James; like the location of secret midnight duels with Slytherin that no one will admit to, but that explain the mysterious heart-shaped patch of scar tissue on Sirius' right hand, and other, less visible marks.
He likes to think it's because he's more approachable than the rest of his friends, but if he's being honest, it's probably because he's just not fast enough to block the spells that accompany the rendezvous times.
He's got to improve his speed, he thinks sorely as he rubs his arm, Lucius Malfoy's voice echoing down the corridor.
Fifth:
It could, he tells himself, have been worse; he could have been a cockroach or something along those lines, although it's hard not to feel jealous and a bit like a failure while Sirius lops through the Forest in pursuit of Remus, and James placidly strolls under the moonlight, unafraid.
In the morning, waiting for Remus to wake, James bemoans the fact that he ate grass last night because it felt right; Sirius whines and scratches his ears because he's got fleas, tail thumping against the wet forest floor and Peter decides that maybe it's perfectly fine, being a rat.
-
Remus always threatens to take points away unless they stop hexing Slytherins, but he never actually does. He frowns, disapproves, and is utterly incapable of stopping Sirius and James, and Peter can't help but to think that he's a bit useless as a prefect.
He doesn't think Remus spineless; he knows in his place he'd do the same, because who'd dare go against James and Sirius?
Sometimes, though, he wishes Remus would do more, just so Lily Evans' wrath would not descend upon them so violently and frequently.
It'd be nice to win the House Cup at least once, besides.
-
After all the obvious classrooms, as well as the five secret passages they know of, work on the map becomes rather frustrating. They know the castle is full of hidden, secret rooms -- they just don't know how to find them.
So Remus talks to portraits, and often they tell him interesting things; James follows the Slytherins under his cloak and Sirius lets girls seduce him because sometimes they take him places he's never been before -- literally.
Peter spends nights as a rat, worrying only about Madam Norris, creeping down dusty, empty corridors and poking his nose into everything, feeling useful.
-
It's actually rather disappointing, just "Sit down Mister Pettigrew," and, "Looking at your marks I can't recommend anything -- what is it you see yourself doing after Hogwarts?"
"Uh," Peter stammers, wilting slightly under McGonagall's gaze.
"Yes?" she coaxes, not softly.
"I like animals," Peter offers feebly.
"Hm," McGonagall says in return, turning over some papers. "Your Care of Magical Creatures marks aren't... stellar, shall we say, but I do believe Professor Kettleburn could be persuaded to let you into his NEWT-level class, provided your OWL scores are satisfactory."
"Yeah, that'd, uh, be nice. That could work," he agrees. "Thanks, Professor."
-
OWLs are unkind and unnecessary in that they mean staying in school on Hogsmeade weekends, bunkered in the library with only Moony for company as Sirius and James terrorise Snape and other assorted Slytherins down at the village.
With a grunt he sets down a heavy, dusty tome on the table, causing Remus to look up from his own tidy notes.
Peter says "We are doomed," with an absolute lack of chalance and Remus nods his head in agreement. They are doomed.
From two tables over, Lavinia Rogers looks up at the noise and smiles at him shyly, in sympathy.
Sixth:
Advanced Care of Magical Creatures, which Peter takes without his friends, is somewhat disappointing. Peter is a Muggle deep down, and the intricacies of manticore life cycles don't appeal to him as much as learning that the sex of baby snakes is determined by the temperature the egg is kept at.
His childhood dream keeps on intruding as he struggles to write his essay; he forces it to the back of his mind with all his other memories but when he looks down the edge of his parchment is covered in sinuous little 's's.
With a sigh, he starts again.
-
Lavinia Rogers doesn't come up to him at the beginning of sixth year, but instead smiles shyly and refuses to meet his eyes whenever Gryffindor and Ravenclaw share a class.
Remus is first to notice, he tells Peter to go talk to her about History of Magic assignments, but Peter isn't quite sure if he's doing this because he cares or because he's already worrying about exams, which is quite the Moony thing to do. Now that Remus goes out prefecting at night, Peter stares blankly at his empty parchment while Sirius and James plot the downfall of Slytherin House.
-
As the new Gryffindor Prefect it falls to James to speak with Sirius about what he did three nights ago.
"Sod off, bastard," Sirius spits out angrily, interrupting James' speech, and then, expectantly, "Let's get out of here, Wormtail."
Peter stares at him, replies, "I've work to do."
With a final disgusted look, Sirius strides out of the dormitory, muttering rudely under his breath.
After, Peter asks James and Remus about the third problem in their Astronomy assignment. Even if he thought Sirius was right, it wouldn't do to antagonise his other two friends over it; there's safety in numbers.
-
Peter knows that Sirius and James are utterly incapable of staying angry with each other.
Regardless, when meeting up with Remus and James at Diagon Alley for what will hopefully become their customary Boxing Day pub crawl, he's taken aback at finding Sirius, whom he thought to be at home officiating some esoteric "heir to the family name" ritual, tagging along and already rather inebriated.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, surprised.
"I ran away," Sirius says darkly as James protectively wraps an arm around him, holds him upright. "Place was a viper's nest," and leaves it at that.
-
When Peter finally works up the courage to ask Lavinia to Hogsmeade, and she says yes, James asks him for help in wooing Evans, who remains as churlish as ever.
So Peter tells him, "uh, I just... asked her," and James eagerly interrupts, "yes, but how," leaving Peter to stutter, "I don't know... I just... did," which apparently is good enough for James.
When James returns, reddening palm mark on his cheek, Sirius pulls him aside, pats him on the back and soberly says "it's hopeless, Prongs -- she'll never have you," while glaring at Peter, who really doesn't understand why.
-
The first time they try to use the Map is a complete disaster -- the parchment insults James, suggesting lewd things he can do with his wand, glasses and unholy love of Lily Evans.
The second time, after Sirius rips it from James' hands saying "You're useless, Potter," and taps the map with his wand, Messrs Padfoot and Moony have rather uncharitable things to say about him.
Remus is next, and as they silently watch the inky lines spread out under his fingers, and Peter spots room after room that he uncovered he's quietly exhilarated, like he's never done anything better.
Seventh:
It's hard for other people to see, but James making Headboy is driving the lot of them slowly crazy, all these new tensions. Mostly it's in the little things, like how Sirius narrows his eyes whenever James suggests they do something other than prank Snape.
Coming back from Potions one day, Peter finds the two of them sitting together going through James' magazines. The bridge of James' glasses is broken, and there's a large bruise blossoming around Sirius' left eye.
Things will be alright, then, Peter thinks with relief. He didn't want to think of what would have happened otherwise.
-
Things don't stay alright for long, though, not after Lily Evans acknowledges James with something other than a menacing growl of "Potter."
Maybe that's what drives Sirius to Remus; although Peter would rather not think about it too much. He can't really get used to the thought of the two of them together like that, and for a while neither could James.
But it seems a tad too cruel even for Sirius, doing all this out of revenge. Even if they all know him to be vicious, having seen him hexing his own brother in the corridors in bored anger.
-
Because the war is starting to get dire the Ministry sends a team of crack Aurors to Hogwarts near the end of the term to recruit students; the battle-wearied wizards inspire not so much confidence in Peter as they inspire the beginnings of doubt. He cannot picture these people, with dark circles under their eyes, saving them from Voldemort's Death Eaters.
As they boast of how many Death Eaters they have captured in the past week, Peter thinks back to the headlines of the Daily Prophet, which Lily Evans reads every day, and remembers how many more got away.
-
Winter hols are always a quiet lull away from the frantic castle; no essays and no owls, just pudding and mince pies his mum insists on saving for Christmas supper and his sisters -- not a drop of magic in between the pair -- fussing over him.
For the sake of good old times, Peter finds his old plastic snake, the one he got in lieu of a real one, and slips it under Anna's pillow.
Feeling somewhat childish, he hides in his room and reads his Mad Muggle comics until a frightened yelp reaches him. Then he can't help but giggle.
-
Girls still come up to him asking how to best seduce Sirius. Lavinia sometimes get fussy and jealous, and that makes Peter think that it's not meant to be, between the two of them. Especially because, going by how James and Sirius talk about it, him and Lavinia should be doing more than just sneaking awkward kisses behind the greenhouses after class.
He tries to be kind when he tells her this, but she will have none of it, so in the end he just throws his hands up in the air and leaves her crying openly in the corridor.
-
As he thinks of how the end of the school year is drawing near, Pete cannot help but to look back on the past seven years, and all the things they've done together, the four of them.
It's a bit girly, he's aware, but he figures if he doesn't tell anyone then he can keep his shame to himself and indulge in a bit of reminiscing and not have his friends take the piss afterwards. Because he knows they would, or at least Sirius and James would; He has the feeling Remus is prone to these same fits of introspection.
-
Peter has no idea of what the future holds.
James has already decided that he wants to be like Mad-Eye Moody ("only without the mad-eye!" he tells everyone who asks, like it's the funniest thing he's ever come up with), Sirius occasionally mentions Auror training because that's what brothers do, stick together, and Remus smiles tightly whenever someone asks him about life after school.
The other day some Slytherins cornered him in a corridor, called him Mudblood, and as they raised their wands to hex him, Peter couldn't help but noticing the green snake peering from underneath Rossier's robes.
--
Oh, the joy of catharsis.
First:
Peter is the decent sort, his mother says; he makes friends easily. Like how Remus Lupin and him became friends just the night after being sorted, too wary of the other boys. Or like how when Sirius Black called him "Mudblood" last month, James Potter defended him, said "he's still better than you," and hexed Black; they've been friends since, sort of. Sometimes, James and Peter get together, talk of spells to cast on Black, but he always has a counter-curse ready.
"You're the decent sort, Pete," James tells him, fretfully gawking at Peter as he tap-dances uncontrollably. "Ignore him."
Second:
Remus' ill-fated relatives have never seemed strange to Peter, at least no stranger than how Sirius never mentions his parents, or how James sleeps clutching a teddy bear; everyone is weird somehow.
He's never given Remus much thought, Peter realises suddenly. He's just, well... there. Quietly present. Remus watches, providing advice when Sirius and James ask for it but never volunteering too much information, never wanting too much attention.
Now, James and Sirius at his side as they confront Remus about his absences and his dead relatives and the myriad cuts on his arms every month, it's very clear why.
-
Sirius, very few mothers would say, is the decent sort. Peter isn't so sure his own mother would approve, as Sirius is crazy, obviously.
"We should do it," Sirius says, cocky. "We could do it, you know."
"Yeah," James agrees. "We're smart enough."
"We'll help you with the tougher bits, Peter," Sirius grins, and Peter wonders if he's offering out of genuine goodwill or because he can''t help but think 'Mudblood' when he sees him, little Peter who won't manage the Animagus transformation on his own.
Peter, he may be a bit slow on the reflexes, but he's not stupid.
Third:
Sometimes, Peter wants to be Sirius.
It's not that he thinks, given the same chances, the same things, I'd do a better job at being Sirius Black, or I want to be Sirius instead of Sirius, but that he wishes it were James and him, like it is James and Sirius. Sort of, anyhow, because Peter doesn't know that he has it in him to hex Snape like Sirius does, so viciously.
Not that he's ever had a chance to know, relegated as he is every time to duelling Rosier and Goyle, both of them deemed slow enough for him.
-
It seems stupid now, aged thirteen, but when he was seven his parents took him to the zoo once, and there, in the reptile house, Peter fell in love for the first time.
Not with a blonde, blue-eyed girl, or with a doe-eyed brunette, or with any girl, really, but with the sinuous grace of the snakes lazily coiled around tree branches; with the idea of being the one who got to handle them.
After that, he always wanted a snake, but his parents always said no.
He's gotten over it, though. Care of Magical Creatures does the trick nowadays.
-
The House Cup was so very close, it was almost theirs -- until the last moment, when Snape, Malfoy, Rossier and Sirius' cousins found him one night on his way back from the kitchens.
James and Sirius' retaliation was inventive, earning them a month of detentions (to carry over to next year). It also cost them 125 points that saw the Great Hall decked in the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw the last day of term.
The way the other Gryffindors glared at him, Peter would've spent the whole summer scrubbing other people's cauldrons, if it meant getting those points back.
Fourth:
"Hola, Peter," says Lily Evans, who discovered Majorca over the summer and came back greeting everyone in broken Spanish, complaining about lousy translations and how it's originally spelled Quijote, and not Quixote, as it's been rendered in English.
"Hello, Evans," Peter replies, tone not casually studied to sound charming and confident like James'. It's funny, Peter thinks, how people who won't speak to James or Sirius, too dazzled or annoyed by them, will still speak to him.
Peter, he's more approachable. He's lost count of the number of girls who've asked him what the best way to seduce Sirius is.
-
"You know what we should do?" Sirius asks one night, wickedly.
"What?" Remus asks warily, probably hoping the answer doesn't include the words 'Snivellus' and 'hex'
"Make a map," he answers, "of the whole castle."
James stares at him like he's lost it, and Peter must confess he's missing the point too. "What the fuck for?" James asks.
"Not a normal map, idiot," Sirius explains. "A magical one, that shows everything," and the way he says it, the idea is suddenly appealing and brilliant.
"It could show everyone too," Peter suggests, rather spur-of-the-moment.
Grinning, Sirius turns to him. "It could."
-
Peter's two sisters, Anna and Katherine, used to constantly tease him when growing up, affectionate but merciless all the same. Peter would not so much retaliate as stoicly suffer and then fail to think of ways to fight back.
But after that trip to the zoo, when his parents bought him a fake plastic snake, he started to leave it underneath their pillows, so that they'd find it when going to bed.
Their screams, first of fright and then of outrage, never stopped being funny, as he hid not only from their anger, but also from that of their parents.
-
Peter always delivers messages to Sirius and James; like the location of secret midnight duels with Slytherin that no one will admit to, but that explain the mysterious heart-shaped patch of scar tissue on Sirius' right hand, and other, less visible marks.
He likes to think it's because he's more approachable than the rest of his friends, but if he's being honest, it's probably because he's just not fast enough to block the spells that accompany the rendezvous times.
He's got to improve his speed, he thinks sorely as he rubs his arm, Lucius Malfoy's voice echoing down the corridor.
Fifth:
It could, he tells himself, have been worse; he could have been a cockroach or something along those lines, although it's hard not to feel jealous and a bit like a failure while Sirius lops through the Forest in pursuit of Remus, and James placidly strolls under the moonlight, unafraid.
In the morning, waiting for Remus to wake, James bemoans the fact that he ate grass last night because it felt right; Sirius whines and scratches his ears because he's got fleas, tail thumping against the wet forest floor and Peter decides that maybe it's perfectly fine, being a rat.
-
Remus always threatens to take points away unless they stop hexing Slytherins, but he never actually does. He frowns, disapproves, and is utterly incapable of stopping Sirius and James, and Peter can't help but to think that he's a bit useless as a prefect.
He doesn't think Remus spineless; he knows in his place he'd do the same, because who'd dare go against James and Sirius?
Sometimes, though, he wishes Remus would do more, just so Lily Evans' wrath would not descend upon them so violently and frequently.
It'd be nice to win the House Cup at least once, besides.
-
After all the obvious classrooms, as well as the five secret passages they know of, work on the map becomes rather frustrating. They know the castle is full of hidden, secret rooms -- they just don't know how to find them.
So Remus talks to portraits, and often they tell him interesting things; James follows the Slytherins under his cloak and Sirius lets girls seduce him because sometimes they take him places he's never been before -- literally.
Peter spends nights as a rat, worrying only about Madam Norris, creeping down dusty, empty corridors and poking his nose into everything, feeling useful.
-
It's actually rather disappointing, just "Sit down Mister Pettigrew," and, "Looking at your marks I can't recommend anything -- what is it you see yourself doing after Hogwarts?"
"Uh," Peter stammers, wilting slightly under McGonagall's gaze.
"Yes?" she coaxes, not softly.
"I like animals," Peter offers feebly.
"Hm," McGonagall says in return, turning over some papers. "Your Care of Magical Creatures marks aren't... stellar, shall we say, but I do believe Professor Kettleburn could be persuaded to let you into his NEWT-level class, provided your OWL scores are satisfactory."
"Yeah, that'd, uh, be nice. That could work," he agrees. "Thanks, Professor."
-
OWLs are unkind and unnecessary in that they mean staying in school on Hogsmeade weekends, bunkered in the library with only Moony for company as Sirius and James terrorise Snape and other assorted Slytherins down at the village.
With a grunt he sets down a heavy, dusty tome on the table, causing Remus to look up from his own tidy notes.
Peter says "We are doomed," with an absolute lack of chalance and Remus nods his head in agreement. They are doomed.
From two tables over, Lavinia Rogers looks up at the noise and smiles at him shyly, in sympathy.
Sixth:
Advanced Care of Magical Creatures, which Peter takes without his friends, is somewhat disappointing. Peter is a Muggle deep down, and the intricacies of manticore life cycles don't appeal to him as much as learning that the sex of baby snakes is determined by the temperature the egg is kept at.
His childhood dream keeps on intruding as he struggles to write his essay; he forces it to the back of his mind with all his other memories but when he looks down the edge of his parchment is covered in sinuous little 's's.
With a sigh, he starts again.
-
Lavinia Rogers doesn't come up to him at the beginning of sixth year, but instead smiles shyly and refuses to meet his eyes whenever Gryffindor and Ravenclaw share a class.
Remus is first to notice, he tells Peter to go talk to her about History of Magic assignments, but Peter isn't quite sure if he's doing this because he cares or because he's already worrying about exams, which is quite the Moony thing to do. Now that Remus goes out prefecting at night, Peter stares blankly at his empty parchment while Sirius and James plot the downfall of Slytherin House.
-
As the new Gryffindor Prefect it falls to James to speak with Sirius about what he did three nights ago.
"Sod off, bastard," Sirius spits out angrily, interrupting James' speech, and then, expectantly, "Let's get out of here, Wormtail."
Peter stares at him, replies, "I've work to do."
With a final disgusted look, Sirius strides out of the dormitory, muttering rudely under his breath.
After, Peter asks James and Remus about the third problem in their Astronomy assignment. Even if he thought Sirius was right, it wouldn't do to antagonise his other two friends over it; there's safety in numbers.
-
Peter knows that Sirius and James are utterly incapable of staying angry with each other.
Regardless, when meeting up with Remus and James at Diagon Alley for what will hopefully become their customary Boxing Day pub crawl, he's taken aback at finding Sirius, whom he thought to be at home officiating some esoteric "heir to the family name" ritual, tagging along and already rather inebriated.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, surprised.
"I ran away," Sirius says darkly as James protectively wraps an arm around him, holds him upright. "Place was a viper's nest," and leaves it at that.
-
When Peter finally works up the courage to ask Lavinia to Hogsmeade, and she says yes, James asks him for help in wooing Evans, who remains as churlish as ever.
So Peter tells him, "uh, I just... asked her," and James eagerly interrupts, "yes, but how," leaving Peter to stutter, "I don't know... I just... did," which apparently is good enough for James.
When James returns, reddening palm mark on his cheek, Sirius pulls him aside, pats him on the back and soberly says "it's hopeless, Prongs -- she'll never have you," while glaring at Peter, who really doesn't understand why.
-
The first time they try to use the Map is a complete disaster -- the parchment insults James, suggesting lewd things he can do with his wand, glasses and unholy love of Lily Evans.
The second time, after Sirius rips it from James' hands saying "You're useless, Potter," and taps the map with his wand, Messrs Padfoot and Moony have rather uncharitable things to say about him.
Remus is next, and as they silently watch the inky lines spread out under his fingers, and Peter spots room after room that he uncovered he's quietly exhilarated, like he's never done anything better.
Seventh:
It's hard for other people to see, but James making Headboy is driving the lot of them slowly crazy, all these new tensions. Mostly it's in the little things, like how Sirius narrows his eyes whenever James suggests they do something other than prank Snape.
Coming back from Potions one day, Peter finds the two of them sitting together going through James' magazines. The bridge of James' glasses is broken, and there's a large bruise blossoming around Sirius' left eye.
Things will be alright, then, Peter thinks with relief. He didn't want to think of what would have happened otherwise.
-
Things don't stay alright for long, though, not after Lily Evans acknowledges James with something other than a menacing growl of "Potter."
Maybe that's what drives Sirius to Remus; although Peter would rather not think about it too much. He can't really get used to the thought of the two of them together like that, and for a while neither could James.
But it seems a tad too cruel even for Sirius, doing all this out of revenge. Even if they all know him to be vicious, having seen him hexing his own brother in the corridors in bored anger.
-
Because the war is starting to get dire the Ministry sends a team of crack Aurors to Hogwarts near the end of the term to recruit students; the battle-wearied wizards inspire not so much confidence in Peter as they inspire the beginnings of doubt. He cannot picture these people, with dark circles under their eyes, saving them from Voldemort's Death Eaters.
As they boast of how many Death Eaters they have captured in the past week, Peter thinks back to the headlines of the Daily Prophet, which Lily Evans reads every day, and remembers how many more got away.
-
Winter hols are always a quiet lull away from the frantic castle; no essays and no owls, just pudding and mince pies his mum insists on saving for Christmas supper and his sisters -- not a drop of magic in between the pair -- fussing over him.
For the sake of good old times, Peter finds his old plastic snake, the one he got in lieu of a real one, and slips it under Anna's pillow.
Feeling somewhat childish, he hides in his room and reads his Mad Muggle comics until a frightened yelp reaches him. Then he can't help but giggle.
-
Girls still come up to him asking how to best seduce Sirius. Lavinia sometimes get fussy and jealous, and that makes Peter think that it's not meant to be, between the two of them. Especially because, going by how James and Sirius talk about it, him and Lavinia should be doing more than just sneaking awkward kisses behind the greenhouses after class.
He tries to be kind when he tells her this, but she will have none of it, so in the end he just throws his hands up in the air and leaves her crying openly in the corridor.
-
As he thinks of how the end of the school year is drawing near, Pete cannot help but to look back on the past seven years, and all the things they've done together, the four of them.
It's a bit girly, he's aware, but he figures if he doesn't tell anyone then he can keep his shame to himself and indulge in a bit of reminiscing and not have his friends take the piss afterwards. Because he knows they would, or at least Sirius and James would; He has the feeling Remus is prone to these same fits of introspection.
-
Peter has no idea of what the future holds.
James has already decided that he wants to be like Mad-Eye Moody ("only without the mad-eye!" he tells everyone who asks, like it's the funniest thing he's ever come up with), Sirius occasionally mentions Auror training because that's what brothers do, stick together, and Remus smiles tightly whenever someone asks him about life after school.
The other day some Slytherins cornered him in a corridor, called him Mudblood, and as they raised their wands to hex him, Peter couldn't help but noticing the green snake peering from underneath Rossier's robes.
--
Oh, the joy of catharsis.