Challenge #89: Snakes & Lions
Title: Jumping Ship
Rating/Warnings: PG at worst.
Characters/Pairing: Marauders from Pettigrew's POV; Snape and Lily feature.
Summary: During Peter Pettigrew's first year at Hogwarts he realises he isn't quite the same as the other Gryffindors. But is it him at fault or them?
Word Count: 1616.
Author's Notes: Err... I ran over time a little, but that was mostly tidying up loose ends D: *flail* Also, my first ever Marauders-era fic. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Registered purchases?: Both!
"Ahh, Peter. Already I see a lot of cleverness in your mind. Not bookishness, I'm sure you already suspect, but you do seem rather astute, very tuned in to what people think, and what they think about you. I've half a mind to put you in Slytherin, actually. It would be very helpful for you... oh? You don't want to be there? Oh, because your friend got put in Gryffindor. Is that your only reason? That's rather a pity, I think you would find much better company in with the Slytherins, but... oh. You are worried about losing the first friend you've made since coming here? Well, if that's your reason... I suppose Gryffindor will do you just fine. GRYFFINDOR!"
And that was how it all began.
I started off with making one excuse, and the Hat granted me the concession. I had met Remus on the Hogwarts Express, and he seemed as happy to know me as I was to know him. His Sorting was extremely quick, and he went just before I did. I had to follow him at all costs.
We shared our dormitory with a couple of other boys. I didn't think much of them. They were happy as part of their own little duo, and spent the first night blowing bubbles out of their wands. It was fun to watch, but after a whie I just wanted to sleep. I think Remus did, too. I was already starting to wonder whether I should have not asked to be put in Gryffindor after all.
Just two or three evenings in, things became complicated.
"Remus is sick," Sirius Black, the taller of the boys, told me with more of a grunt of irritation about being used as a message-carrier. "He has to spend the evening in the Hospital Wing. I spoke the Matron but she insisted nobody was allowed to go in without prior consent."
That night, I sat and looked at Remus' empty bed, as moonlight illuminated the relief of James Potter, who was practicing a transfiguration spell on his bed. He always had his wand out; he and Sirius were forever competing to master that first spell first, to show off who had mastered magic the first. I admired their confidence, but I didn't think it was much to do with me. I felt peripheral. They probably didn't even notice.
"Hey, Pettigrew! Here's a match. Can you make it into a needle? Mine's gone metallic but there's no points on either end."
I prodded it with my wand and the match ignited, setting fire to my bedsheets. The other two laughed at me before throwing the water jug over the fire. I felt mortified, and spent the night in Remus' bed.
But at least the two were talking to me now.
Time went by, and I found myself hanging around with the boys in my dormitory much less. Remus had a certain bookishness about him which seemed to overlap sufficiently with James and Sirius' thirst to one-up each other that they had a certain common ground. I was just that other one, the spare, the one they only spoke to when one of them was having a tantrum or an argument with the other. I started sitting in the dormitory, or in the library, occasionally speaking to the other students, to the Gryffindor girls in my year. One was always friendly to me. She was a Muggle-Born, though. She didn't seem to quite understand our world, despite her enthusiasm.
It was like she didn't belong here, either. It was like finding somebody with whom I shared a bit of common ground.
Walking out of Potions class one afternoon near the end of our first year, she pulled me aside, after Professor Slughorn had landed both Potter and Black a double detention for turning their potion into molten lava:
"I really feel sorry for you, you know," Lily said, pulling me through the corridors. "I can't imagine having to share a dormitory with those horrid boys. It must be such a pain."
I smiled, not sure what to say. "Yeah, sometimes they can get too much."
"Only sometimes?" Lily rolled her eyes at my cautiousness, and leaned in. "They really do think the whole world is about them and their little squabbles. It's pathetic. They're like six year olds in primary school."
"What's a primary school?"
Lily shook her head. "Forget it. Anyway, I don't get why you sit with them. All they ever do is lose house points. I did a bit of a running count one week: they lost us a hundred and fifty between them over the space of a week. We were only sixty behind Hufflepuff this morning! If they didn't screw up so much we'd be ahead right now."
"No, I know what you're saying," I said, fidgeting because I didn't want to say the wrong thing. "I think they're just being boys. You know."
"Not every boy is like them, though," Lily sighed, as though she wanted to grab me, shake my throat and yell at me to stop sitting on the damned fence. "Listen, come to Gobstones club tonight. Sev has been teaching me how to play, it's jolly good fun."
"Sev? As in Sev Snape?"
"Yeah, Sev as in Sev Snape," Lily said, eyes narrowing. "What? Because he's in Slytherin you don't want to be seen around him? You've been sharing a dorm with the others for too long."
"No, no, it's fine, I'll come." I said. "It's Sirius' birthday tomorrow anyway, and they're planning on turning the dorm into a pirate ship while Remus is away again."
So that was how I first met Severus Snape and his group of friends. My mother had taught me how to play Gobstones from an early age, but I was never particularly good; I lacked the manual dexterity. Snape and Lily seemed to be particularly good at it, Lily shrieking with delight whenever Snape got squirted with liquid; Snape occasionally flashing a rare grin at Lily when he returned the favour.
"Are you enjoying the match, Pettigrew?" Snape said, not looking up.
"Uh, I guess."
"Mmm." He still didn't look up. Lily watched the two of them carefully. "Lily was telling me you were having trouble with James Potter."
"Oh, well, I don't want to get him into trouble," I said automatically. Snape sneered.
"I don't care. He's a bad person."
He rolled a stone away from him; it touched one of Lily's and no liquid was spurted.
"I always go to Sev whenever they're stressing me out," Lily explained. "Sev is sensible and patient, he's nothing like those other boys."
"Yeah, I suppose," I said, finding it surprisingly easy to let any pretenses of attachment I had to Potter and Black slip to one side. "Remus is okay, though."
Snape scoffed. "Yeah, Remus. Let me guess: he's away again tonight, right?"
"Errr..."
"It doesn't matter, all the boys in Gryffindor are the same," Snape said. "Except you."
My ears twitched. "Huh?"
"You're not quite like the Gryffindors there," Snape said. "We've both noticed it, Lily and I. You're different, somehow."
I didn't know what to say, for a moment. The two of them watched me, waiting for me to say something. It was a rush to find the right words, to keep things smooth. Finally, I decided on the best thing I could:
"Is that a bad thing?"
Lily smiled and tapped my wrist. "It's not bad at all. I always say Severus should have been in Gryffindor with me. He's always saying the right thing, he knows what's unacceptable, and he holds the door open for girls. Isn't Gryffindor house meant to be the ones who are chivalrous? Have you ever seen Sirius Black open a door for anyone? Probably too far below him; he expects a house elf to do it for him, if the rumours about his family are anything to be believed."
"But that means they aren't in the right house either?" I said, turning it into a game. "What about them?"
Snape winced. "I hate to admit it, but they would fare well in Slytherin. But if I had to sleep in their dormitory, I'd spend each night hexing them."
I realised, at that point, that the best Gryffindors did indeed seem to belong in Slytherin: Sirius, his family had unanimously been adorned in green and silver before him was arrogant and lofty. James Potter was ambitious and shrewd. They were in the wrong house, after all.
"What about Pettigrew?" Snape said. "Where would you go?"
For the first time in my life, I admitted what the Hat had said to me: about how I would have done well in Slytherin after all. I would have never told this to James or Sirius, but in the company of Lily and Snape, I felt like it didn't even matter: they didn't care much about where in the school you came from, only who you were and how you treated others.
It was that day, at Lily's suggestion, that I legitimately stopped trying to be a Gryffindor, and accepted my Slytherin side for what it was. I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, the effort I had created for myself by trying to ingratiate myself with everybody having taken a gradual toll on my person.
When I opened the dormitory that evening to find a wave of water wash over my shoes, James Potter and Sirius Black were sat on the beds which had been moved together and transfigured into ropes and sails. They both yelled Man Overboard as I was hoisted aboard their galleon.
The two best Gryffindors in our year were Slytherins, and yet neither of them realised it.
It was the night I realised we had something in common with them after all, and decided I would stay with my true housemates after all.
1616/30 = 53.866
Rob // Gryffindor // 54 points + 10 bonus - GET!!!
Rating/Warnings: PG at worst.
Characters/Pairing: Marauders from Pettigrew's POV; Snape and Lily feature.
Summary: During Peter Pettigrew's first year at Hogwarts he realises he isn't quite the same as the other Gryffindors. But is it him at fault or them?
Word Count: 1616.
Author's Notes: Err... I ran over time a little, but that was mostly tidying up loose ends D: *flail* Also, my first ever Marauders-era fic. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Registered purchases?: Both!
"Ahh, Peter. Already I see a lot of cleverness in your mind. Not bookishness, I'm sure you already suspect, but you do seem rather astute, very tuned in to what people think, and what they think about you. I've half a mind to put you in Slytherin, actually. It would be very helpful for you... oh? You don't want to be there? Oh, because your friend got put in Gryffindor. Is that your only reason? That's rather a pity, I think you would find much better company in with the Slytherins, but... oh. You are worried about losing the first friend you've made since coming here? Well, if that's your reason... I suppose Gryffindor will do you just fine. GRYFFINDOR!"
And that was how it all began.
I started off with making one excuse, and the Hat granted me the concession. I had met Remus on the Hogwarts Express, and he seemed as happy to know me as I was to know him. His Sorting was extremely quick, and he went just before I did. I had to follow him at all costs.
We shared our dormitory with a couple of other boys. I didn't think much of them. They were happy as part of their own little duo, and spent the first night blowing bubbles out of their wands. It was fun to watch, but after a whie I just wanted to sleep. I think Remus did, too. I was already starting to wonder whether I should have not asked to be put in Gryffindor after all.
Just two or three evenings in, things became complicated.
"Remus is sick," Sirius Black, the taller of the boys, told me with more of a grunt of irritation about being used as a message-carrier. "He has to spend the evening in the Hospital Wing. I spoke the Matron but she insisted nobody was allowed to go in without prior consent."
That night, I sat and looked at Remus' empty bed, as moonlight illuminated the relief of James Potter, who was practicing a transfiguration spell on his bed. He always had his wand out; he and Sirius were forever competing to master that first spell first, to show off who had mastered magic the first. I admired their confidence, but I didn't think it was much to do with me. I felt peripheral. They probably didn't even notice.
"Hey, Pettigrew! Here's a match. Can you make it into a needle? Mine's gone metallic but there's no points on either end."
I prodded it with my wand and the match ignited, setting fire to my bedsheets. The other two laughed at me before throwing the water jug over the fire. I felt mortified, and spent the night in Remus' bed.
But at least the two were talking to me now.
Time went by, and I found myself hanging around with the boys in my dormitory much less. Remus had a certain bookishness about him which seemed to overlap sufficiently with James and Sirius' thirst to one-up each other that they had a certain common ground. I was just that other one, the spare, the one they only spoke to when one of them was having a tantrum or an argument with the other. I started sitting in the dormitory, or in the library, occasionally speaking to the other students, to the Gryffindor girls in my year. One was always friendly to me. She was a Muggle-Born, though. She didn't seem to quite understand our world, despite her enthusiasm.
It was like she didn't belong here, either. It was like finding somebody with whom I shared a bit of common ground.
Walking out of Potions class one afternoon near the end of our first year, she pulled me aside, after Professor Slughorn had landed both Potter and Black a double detention for turning their potion into molten lava:
"I really feel sorry for you, you know," Lily said, pulling me through the corridors. "I can't imagine having to share a dormitory with those horrid boys. It must be such a pain."
I smiled, not sure what to say. "Yeah, sometimes they can get too much."
"Only sometimes?" Lily rolled her eyes at my cautiousness, and leaned in. "They really do think the whole world is about them and their little squabbles. It's pathetic. They're like six year olds in primary school."
"What's a primary school?"
Lily shook her head. "Forget it. Anyway, I don't get why you sit with them. All they ever do is lose house points. I did a bit of a running count one week: they lost us a hundred and fifty between them over the space of a week. We were only sixty behind Hufflepuff this morning! If they didn't screw up so much we'd be ahead right now."
"No, I know what you're saying," I said, fidgeting because I didn't want to say the wrong thing. "I think they're just being boys. You know."
"Not every boy is like them, though," Lily sighed, as though she wanted to grab me, shake my throat and yell at me to stop sitting on the damned fence. "Listen, come to Gobstones club tonight. Sev has been teaching me how to play, it's jolly good fun."
"Sev? As in Sev Snape?"
"Yeah, Sev as in Sev Snape," Lily said, eyes narrowing. "What? Because he's in Slytherin you don't want to be seen around him? You've been sharing a dorm with the others for too long."
"No, no, it's fine, I'll come." I said. "It's Sirius' birthday tomorrow anyway, and they're planning on turning the dorm into a pirate ship while Remus is away again."
So that was how I first met Severus Snape and his group of friends. My mother had taught me how to play Gobstones from an early age, but I was never particularly good; I lacked the manual dexterity. Snape and Lily seemed to be particularly good at it, Lily shrieking with delight whenever Snape got squirted with liquid; Snape occasionally flashing a rare grin at Lily when he returned the favour.
"Are you enjoying the match, Pettigrew?" Snape said, not looking up.
"Uh, I guess."
"Mmm." He still didn't look up. Lily watched the two of them carefully. "Lily was telling me you were having trouble with James Potter."
"Oh, well, I don't want to get him into trouble," I said automatically. Snape sneered.
"I don't care. He's a bad person."
He rolled a stone away from him; it touched one of Lily's and no liquid was spurted.
"I always go to Sev whenever they're stressing me out," Lily explained. "Sev is sensible and patient, he's nothing like those other boys."
"Yeah, I suppose," I said, finding it surprisingly easy to let any pretenses of attachment I had to Potter and Black slip to one side. "Remus is okay, though."
Snape scoffed. "Yeah, Remus. Let me guess: he's away again tonight, right?"
"Errr..."
"It doesn't matter, all the boys in Gryffindor are the same," Snape said. "Except you."
My ears twitched. "Huh?"
"You're not quite like the Gryffindors there," Snape said. "We've both noticed it, Lily and I. You're different, somehow."
I didn't know what to say, for a moment. The two of them watched me, waiting for me to say something. It was a rush to find the right words, to keep things smooth. Finally, I decided on the best thing I could:
"Is that a bad thing?"
Lily smiled and tapped my wrist. "It's not bad at all. I always say Severus should have been in Gryffindor with me. He's always saying the right thing, he knows what's unacceptable, and he holds the door open for girls. Isn't Gryffindor house meant to be the ones who are chivalrous? Have you ever seen Sirius Black open a door for anyone? Probably too far below him; he expects a house elf to do it for him, if the rumours about his family are anything to be believed."
"But that means they aren't in the right house either?" I said, turning it into a game. "What about them?"
Snape winced. "I hate to admit it, but they would fare well in Slytherin. But if I had to sleep in their dormitory, I'd spend each night hexing them."
I realised, at that point, that the best Gryffindors did indeed seem to belong in Slytherin: Sirius, his family had unanimously been adorned in green and silver before him was arrogant and lofty. James Potter was ambitious and shrewd. They were in the wrong house, after all.
"What about Pettigrew?" Snape said. "Where would you go?"
For the first time in my life, I admitted what the Hat had said to me: about how I would have done well in Slytherin after all. I would have never told this to James or Sirius, but in the company of Lily and Snape, I felt like it didn't even matter: they didn't care much about where in the school you came from, only who you were and how you treated others.
It was that day, at Lily's suggestion, that I legitimately stopped trying to be a Gryffindor, and accepted my Slytherin side for what it was. I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, the effort I had created for myself by trying to ingratiate myself with everybody having taken a gradual toll on my person.
When I opened the dormitory that evening to find a wave of water wash over my shoes, James Potter and Sirius Black were sat on the beds which had been moved together and transfigured into ropes and sails. They both yelled Man Overboard as I was hoisted aboard their galleon.
The two best Gryffindors in our year were Slytherins, and yet neither of them realised it.
It was the night I realised we had something in common with them after all, and decided I would stay with my true housemates after all.
1616/30 = 53.866
Rob // Gryffindor // 54 points + 10 bonus - GET!!!