the years of the rat (2/3)
Follows part 1
Year 4
Chinese Zodiac, rat: "imaginative, charming, and truly generous to the person they love."
Oddly enough, Remus was the first of the Marauders to discover girls. Or, more accurately, the girls discovered him.
Logically, Peter had known that there were a fair number of girls in their year. But the full impact of all that femininity never really hit him until there were suddenly girls everywhere. A small pack of them materialized wherever the Marauders went, whispering in the corridors and tittering in the library and generally making it very difficult to do much marauding.
Initially, of course, they all assumed the attention was for Sirius and James, who strutted about accordingly. And maybe some of it was, but gradually Peter realized that most of the girls only hung around when Remus was there; they tended to disperse disappointedly when it was just the others.
Peter couldn't figure out what it was about Remus that attracted them. Remus was the tallest boy in their year, true; he'd had his big growth spurt early, but it just made him sort of awkward and lanky. He looked well enough, but he wasn't nearly as handsome as Sirius or as confident as James. And he was the quietest member of the group - in public, anyway. Peter supposed he had a sort of bookish charm, but nothing all that remarkable.
Whatever it was, none of them expected Remus to go with Melinda Bell for the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year. Or with Gwendolyn Vane to the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw quidditch match. Or with Dearborn's two years' elder sister for long walks around the lake.
Sirius finally put his foot down when it came to his cousin Cissy. "Are you mad, Remus? She's Slytherin, and my bloody cousin to boot! God, she used to run around the lawn naked when she was little."
"Shut up, Sirius," Cissy snapped before Remus managed to get any words out through his blushing and stammering. "I can go with whomever I like."
"What do you girls see in him, anyway?" Sirius whined.
Cissy tossed her pale blonde hair. "He's the only genuinely nice boy in Hogwarts," she said. "A real gentleman, unlike the rest of you lot." She wrinkled her nose elegantly. "A girl likes being treated like a lady sometimes. And there's something to be said for the strong and silent type; Remus has an air of danger to him that's incredibly sexy."
Remus's blush deepened considerably, and Cissy giggled and led him away.
"Don't worry about it, mate," James said awkwardly. "She'll drop him as soon as he tells her he's half Muggle."
Sirius snorted and didn't seem particularly consoled. "I just thought he had better taste," he muttered.
"You're not jealous, are you?" James asked. "Because he gets so many girls?"
"I'm sure loads of them fancy you two as well," Peter said, and inwardly winced at his obsequious tone. "Remus is just…more approachable."
"And if it bothers you that badly, I'm sure he'll let you have one of his castoffs," James added solemnly.
Sirius punched him in the stomach.
*
Peter was in a corner of the common room with his wand, doggedly working through the kinks of a particularly difficult charm Flitwick had assigned them. He was so engrossed in the magic - there was an odd flick of the wrist that he hadn't got quite right - that he didn't realize that Sirius was watching him.
"You know, you're not half bad at Charms," Sirius said.
Peter jerked his wand in surprise and sent the charm off to shatter against the wall.
"Or at Transfigurations," Sirius continued. "I've seen you practice on your own at night. Not that I'm complaining, mind, because we're almost ready for the next part of this whole mad Animagi idea of yours."
"Er," Peter said. Not that it would be all that terrible for his friends to find out he was actually a competent wizard, but the habit of secrecy was a hard one to break. It was nice to be underestimated all the time. Comfortable. He much preferred to hide his skills and be thought stupid than to show off. What if he revealed his true abilities, and they proved not to be all that special? What if he really wasn't particularly good at magic, and everyone saw?
"You know what your problem is?" Sirius asked. The scrutiny in his eyes made Peter uncomfortable. He hated confrontations with Sirius the most. James mainly just overlooked him, and Remus accepted him for who he was, but Sirius was…dangerous.
Peter coughed. "What's that?"
"Confidence," Sirius said firmly. "You freeze up when you know other people are watching, especially professors. You'd do all right if you could just learn to ignore them."
"Right," Peter said, and didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
Having duly meted out words of wisdom to lesser beings, Sirius went back to his book.
*
"Do you suppose we should have a chat with Remus about all his girls?" James said unexpectedly one night over a game of exploding snap.
Peter blinked as his cards exploded, singeing his hands. "Why?" He sucked on his sore fingers.
"Well, there are just so many of them."
"It does seem rather heartless of him," Sirius agreed. He glanced over at James slyly. "And he's taken to disappearing with Lily Evans in the evenings."
"Well, he should know better!" James spluttered, red-faced. "I mean, she's rude and loud and tells tales on us to McGonagall. And she's sneaky and self-righteous and-"
"And very pretty," Sirius added mischievously. "And James fancies her like mad."
"I do not!" James insisted. "I can't stand her! It's not right for Remus to consort with…with the enemy! He'll give away all our secrets!"
"Not Remus," Peter said loyally. "Don't be absurd."
"I just wish I knew where they go every night," James whined.
"He takes her to that abandoned classroom we found behind the suit of armor on the second floor," Sirius said, dealing out another round of snap. "I wanted to work on the Surprise there, but Peter wouldn't let me go in."
Peter felt his face flush. "I saw them go in earlier. I thought they should have some privacy."
"How generous of you," James grumbled. "So he's already given away one of our secrets, at least."
Sirius frowned, no longer amused. "You don't think he'd tell a girl about…"
"About his furry little problem?" James suggested sourly. "I certainly hope not."
Peter glared at them. "He's kept that a secret since he was just a little kid. We wouldn't even know if you hadn't made a lucky guess. Why can't we just trust him?"
"Him I trust," James said. "But Lily-"
"Remus can do whatever he likes with whoever he likes," Peter said stubbornly.
"God, you don't suppose they're, well, kissing in there or something?" James said, appalled. Sirius looked vaguely ill at this suggestion.
"I don't know and I don't care," Peter declared. "I don't see why he shouldn't snog her if he wants to."
For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were the slaps of cards. "Well, good for Remus," Sirius finally said, with no small amount of bitterness. It certainly didn't sound like he meant it, but James and Peter just nodded agreement and continued with the game.
*
Sirius was in a foul mood for days. He taunted Peter more than usual and was short with James, and lashed out angrily at Remus at the slightest provocation. One night, walking back from the Quidditch pitch after practice with James (also on the team) and Peter (the loyal fan), Sirius happened to run into Snivellus Snape.
Literally.
"What the hell?" Snape demanded, landing with some bewilderment in the damp grass.
"Watch where you're going, won't you," Sirius snapped. "Or does that gargantuan nose of yours impede your vision?"
Snape's eyes narrowed. He pulled himself to his feet sharply, brushing some grass off his robes with short, perfunctory movements. "I have somewhere to be," he said stiffly. "If you don't mind."
Sirius took a step towards him, crowding him. "Maybe I do mind. Where are you slinking off to, at this time of night?"
"What's it to you?"
"Oh, everything, Snivellus." Sirius's voice was dangerously silky. He slipped his hand into the pocket where he kept his wand.
Peter nudged James softly in the ribs, wondering if they should interfere before things got out of hand. But though James was also fingering his wand, he didn't make a move.
Snape looked over at them and sneered. "Just the three of you? Where's that incompetent, bookish friend of yours? He doesn't usually stray far from the pack."
It was the wrong thing to say. Sirius's wand was out and ready. "You filthy minger. Go on. Insult Remus again. I dare you."
"Touched a nerve, did I?" Snape laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. Peter could see him reaching into his robes for his own wand. "You'd make a perfectly revolting couple. Too bad he's off shagging that ginger Mudblood in the library. Or didn't you know?"
If James had ever intended to interfere, he'd changed his mind. His face was very red, clear even in the murky night.
"Keep going," Sirius hissed. "Keep going, you slimy little grindylow."
"A real enigma, your Lupin," Snape mused mockingly. "Rather gangling and awkward, isn't he? But a pretty, girlish sort of face. You like that sort of thing, don't you, Black? Your brother's told me stories-"
Peter didn't recognize the hex Sirius shot at Snape, but it wasn't pretty. Parts of Snape's skin seemed to be peeling off his body. Snape snapped out a curse that made yellow boils break out across Sirius's face. This duel was going to get very nasty, and soon.
After a few more seconds, James did finally step in and disarm them both, adding a few quick counter-hexes so that Sirius, at least, was looking more or less like normal.
"So Potter saves your arse, as usual," Snape rasped. "How fortunate for you, Black. You did a shoddy job of defending pretty Lupin's honor-"
And Sirius threw himself at Snape, knocking him over. Snape's head hit the ground with a nasty-sounding thud. Undeterred, Sirius began laying into Snape with his fists, pummeling his chest and arms with terrifying fury. Snape tried to fight back, but he was ill-equipped for a physical fight, and before too long, he was wheezing out a surrender of sorts, bleeding heavily from a gash over his eye. Sirius ignored the attempt at truce, and broke Snape's nose with sickening crunch.
James just stood by with their wands and watched as Snape was given the worst beating of his life.
It didn't take long before Peter's fear got the better of him and he ran back to the castle to fetch Madam Pomfrey. By the time they got back out on the grounds, Snape was lying in an undignified heap on the grass, badly bruised and bloody, but Sirius and James were nowhere to be found.
Torn between his conscience and his friends, Peter stammered out that he'd seen the incident from afar and didn't know who'd done it, then fled as Pomfrey got to work healing Snape.
Snape told all, of course, but as the wounds were not magically inflicted they were soon healed, and Sirius only got a few evenings in detention for it. Peter, remembering the crazed look in Sirius's eyes that night and the unrelenting assault of his fists, thought he'd gotten off far too lightly.
The Marauders never spoke of it again.
*
"Are you going out with Lily Evans?" Peter asked. He and Remus were alone at a table in the library, ostensibly working on their History of Magic essays. Sirius was still in detention, and James was probably working out a way too sneak him in some butterbeer.
Remus blanched and dropped his quill. "No. We're not."
"It's okay if you are," Peter pressed on awkwardly. "I mean, I think James fancies her and Sirius…" He faltered, remembering the Snape incident. "…well, Sirius doesn't seem to like her much, but I think it's fine. You know. She's pretty."
"She is, but we're not," Remus said, looking tired. "It's nothing like that."
"You just seem to spend a lot of time with her, instead of your other girls, so we thought-"
"Sirius and James can think what they like," Remus said flatly. "I don't really care."
"Well, if you're not, then-"
"I'm a teenaged bloke!" Remus practically shouted. Pince glared at him from her desk, and he lowered his voice. "So I hang around with girls a lot. I'm supposed to, aren't I? I'm supposed to want to be surrounded by as many girls as possible, as often as possible, right? It's normal. For once in my life, I'm perfectly normal." There was an unusual edge to his voice.
Peter frowned. "You mean you don't really fancy any of them?"
"Not particularly, no," Remus said wearily, the bite in his voice gone. "I'm just…not interested in girls right now. It's not all that important to me."
"Not even Lily?"
Remus smiled wryly. "Slughorn assigned her to help me with Remedial Potions. That's all."
A new thought occurred to Peter, a strange one. "You're not bent, are you?"
"No!" Remus said, very quickly. He ran a hand through his hair. "No," he repeated. "I just don't fancy anyone right now."
"So why didn't you just tell us that?" Peter asked. "God, you should hear the way James and Sirius talk about it," he added, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Remus sighed. "Let them talk," he said softly. "I don't mind."
Remus had never asked what might have prompted the assault on Snape. Peter wondered how much he'd guessed. Remus was far too willing to turn a blind eye when it came to Sirius. He tried to work on his essay, but couldn't think of anything to write.
"I envy you sometimes, Peter," Remus said. "You're so…ordinary."
Peter smiled and wished he knew what to say.
*
The second potion in the Animagus process was supposed to be ready on the night of a full moon. Which was rather convenient, really, since that meant there was no way Remus would stumble upon them.
"Okay, this potion is kind of creepy," James told them when they had assembled in one of the secret rooms they'd discovered while marauding. "This is the part that eventually determines the nature of our animal forms."
"What do we have to do?" Peter asked, vainly wishing that Lily was in on some secrets. She was the best at Potions in their year - well, along with Snape, who was now avoiding Sirius like the plague - and her expertise might make Peter feel a bit more confident about the effects of this concoction.
James glanced over at Sirius, who pulled something out of his robes. "We're supposed to take a silver dagger - family heirloom, this is, and bloody difficult to lift without my mum noticing - and dip it in the potion. Then, uh, we're supposed to, well, cut our hand open and drip the blood into the potion. I guess we should divide it up into three parts first. I don't want to drink any of your blood by mistake."
"And remember, it's got to be your left hand," James added. "Something about your right hand representing the part of you anyone can see, but your left revealing your secret inner self. I think it's the reverse if you're left-handed."
"How much blood do we need?"
"A fair amount," Sirius said nervously. "It's kind of dodgy, actually. If we made the potion right, then dipping the dagger in it first means the wound should heal quickly, but we won't know until we try it."
James looked pale. "At least there aren't any incantations or anything this time," he said. "And we'll be halfway to becoming Animagi once this part's finished."
They all stared at the dagger and potion.
"Someone's got to test it," Sirius finally said.
"It's your dagger," James pointed out.
"You made most of the potion," Sirius retorted.
They squabbled about it for a bit, until finally - "I'll do it," Peter said.
Sirius and James stared at him.
"It was my idea in the first place," Peter said quietly. "And it's for Remus, isn't it?"
He picked up the dagger and dipped it in his cup of potion. The liquid clung to the blade in a pale green sheen. Peter studied it for a long moment, then calmly plunged the dagger into his left palm and watched his blood seep out.
He didn't feel a thing.
Year 5
OED, rat: n. A rodent of some of the larger species of the genus Rattus.
Sometime early in their fifth year, the rumors began really penetrating the thick, protective walls of Hogwarts. They were vague - whispers of a shadowy threat, hints of strengthening Dark Magic. There were a handful of odd disappearances noted in the Daily Prophet, mainly fairly powerful wizards of pureblood families. Peter's dad's friend Rosier vanished one autumn night, and it was said that he was joining the growing Darkness. His daughter, Evan's elder sister, left Hogwarts a few days later. Sirius's aunt and uncle pulled Cissy out of school to arrange her marriage to the heir of the Malfoy family. The most frightening stories told of a nameless Dark Lord whose powers rivaled those of the infamous Grindewald.
But for the most part, few students took the rumors seriously. This was Hogwarts, after all. Nothing really bad could happen here.
*
The last stage of the transformation into Animagi was every bit as difficult as the textbooks warned, and then some. There were tongue-twisting incantations to memorize in which the slightest mispronunciation could wreck months of labor, and impossibly complex potions whose ingredients could only be collected by the dark of the new moon, and whatnot. But they got through it all, somehow, and finally, finally, in the dubious shelter of a massive oak on the edge of the Forbidden Forest on a dark and stormy night, they were ready.
The dark and stormy bit was specified in the arcane parchment; James wondered aloud in the thunder and lightning were actually critical to the spellcasting or if the original Animagus just had a flair for the dramatic. The out-of-doors bit was mandated because they had no idea what animal forms they might take, and they'd chosen the ancient oak as one of the few spots in the Forbidden Forest both close enough to the castle to be relatively safe and far enough away to remain unnoticed. Even the strangest of animals would probably not seem out of place in the Forest.
They'd rehearsed the final incantation endlessly beforehand until they could speak it in perfect unison. James's eyes were feverishly bright, and Sirius's face was gray. Peter clutched his wand with a sweaty hand.
They raised their wands.
And it was soon over, practically before they realized they'd begun.
None of the scrolls of instructions had actually explained what, exactly, would happen once the final incantation was spoken. Peter wondered if he would just suddenly transfigure into his animal shape, or if his animal would walk (swim? fly?) right up to him and start talking. Would he have to wait a while for the change to occur? Would it start affecting individual body parts one at a time, or all in one go? And how would he learn the spell to actually transform back and forth from human to animal - would the animal teach him? And for the love of all that was good and powerful, how would he find out what animal he was?
The answer, as it turned out, was simple: he just knew.
"Oh," James said softly. Sirius gazed at them both with wonder in his eyes. And Peter just laughed and laughed, joyfully and long.
As for effecting the transformation itself, it was as simple and natural as slipping into a familiar robe.
*
Rat, Peter thought, and shrunk down into rat shape. Peter, he thought, and sprang back up. Rat. Peter. Rat. Peter. And back and forth and back and forth, giddily, until he couldn't tell one form from the other.
*
During their trek back to the castle, soaking wet and exhausted and exhilaratingly happy in the dusky gray pre-dawn light, Sirius decided they needed to have code names. (Sirius had recently developed an unhealthy taste for Muggle spy novels.) He'd already affectionately dubbed Remus "Moony" their fourth year, and the nickname had stuck.
Since Peter couldn't come up with anything good for himself - "Rat," he kept repeating, firmly and contentedly - Sirius somewhat less-than-affectionately decided to call him Wormtail. That nickname stuck, too, but Peter didn't mind. Nor did he mind James's pity or Sirius's poorly contained mirth at the form his Animagus had taken.
They just didn't understand. Rats were brilliant. They were small and sneaky and could slip through cracks in walls. Peter would be able to explore Hogwarts as thoroughly as the Marauders had always dreamed, sniffing out every last secret passage and hidden nook in the castle. There was nowhere he couldn't go now, nothing he couldn't do, no secret he couldn't sniff out.
Sirius and James would be glad of his friendship now.
*
Remus was sitting alone in front of the common room fireplace when they tumbled through the porthole. He glared at them. "Where have you idiots been? Did you think I wouldn't notice you sneaking out at midnight? I bloody well ought to report you all."
"Then it's lucky for us you make a lousy prefect," Sirius said. "So shut up. We've got something fantastic to tell you."
Remus just folded his arms and looked at them, challenging.
"Look," Sirius said softly, and shifted seamlessly into his Animagus form.
"We can all do it," James burst out excitedly, as Remus gaped open-mouthed at the massive black dog capering about his feet. "I mean, me and Pete aren't dogs, but we're Animagi, too-"
"We studied for years and years-" Peter interrupted.
"It took us ages to find the ingredients for the potions-"
"I cut my hand open on Sirius's mum's heirloom-"
"The last potion tasted awful, let me tell you-"
Sirius just barked, a deep, ringing tone.
If Remus weren't already sitting, he probably would have fallen over. "How…why…?"
"We did it for you, Remus," a human Sirius said, still wiggling his rear a little as though wagging an invisible tail. "Werewolves can't hurt our animal shapes, right? We can keep you company when you change. Maybe we can even help you remember yourself."
"Sirius's Animagus is the best for that, since dogs and wolves are practically related," Peter put in - rather generously, he thought, seeing as Sirius had all but taken full credit for the whole idea. Well, the great hulking ugly puppy had done most of the actual research, he supposed.
"Yes, I expect so," Remus said in a strangled tone. "So, ah, what are your Animagi, then?"
"I'm a stag," James said proudly, " And Peter here is a rat."
"Right," Remus croaked. "Lovely creatures, rats." He cupped his head in his hands, deflating abruptly. "If anyone finds out, you're all going to be in so much trouble," he whispered, but the look in his eyes told them everything he didn't know how to say.
*
Peter shamelessly skipped all his classes the next morning in order to become accustomed to Wormtail - and the rat's advantages.
Within a few hours he had made two important discoveries. Firstly, the longer he stayed in rat form, the longer it took his thoughts to snap out of rat mode. There was a certain dark paranoia and an odd craving for peanut butter (not cheese) that lingered with him for a few minutes after shifting back to human form. Peter decided to spend a day or two over the summer entirely as a rat, and see if the ratlike side effects became more pronounced.
But secondly, and more importantly, he discovered that Hogwarts was far more extensive and fascinating than he could ever have imagined.
"You have no idea," he told James over a late lunch. The Hall was nearly empty. "I mean, the library alone has at least three different hidden passageways we didn't know about, including one that leads straight from the restricted section to the bookcase behind Pince's desk. I bet she knows about that one, right, and that's how she kept interrupting our Animagus research." He paused for a second to shovel a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. "And, oh man, I found a tunnel that goes down to the Slytherin boys' loo! Do you know how much marauding we could do in there? And then-"
"Imagine," James interrupted quietly, "if we could map it all out."
"-there's this porthole behind-" It sunk in. "What?"
"A map," James breathed. "A definitive map of Hogwarts. No, don't look at me like that, I've been thinking about this for years only I never thought we'd manage it. But now… You can really get anywhere in the castle, can't you? And Sirius and I can do the grounds, no one will look twice at a deer in the Forest or a dog near Hagrid's Hut."
Peter put his fork down. He wasn't hungry anymore. "All of Hogwarts…"
"I first thought of it second year, when Sirius and I put the tracking spell on Remus, remember? Only it never quite worked properly, because we couldn't tie it down to a really accurate map. It's bloody lucky he went in through the Willow and not some passageway inside the castle, because that map only showed a rough outline of the grounds." Peter nodded; James had never seemed entirely satisfied with the spell and crude diagram. "So I wished, then, that we could make a full map of Hogwarts, so we could run the tracking spell properly. I tried to draw one up on my own, but it was a real mess and we kept finding new tunnels and such, so I gave it up. Besides, the Animagus project was more interesting. But now…"
"We could do it," Peter said, awed. "That would be brilliant, James." And for once, he wasn't just playing up.
*
That evening, in his excitement, Peter bypassed dinner in favor of further exploration. There were all manner of crooks and tiny passageways sprinkled throughout the castle, and it would take him months to discover them all. Tonight, while everyone was at dinner, he planned to do a thorough investigation of Gryffindor Tower.
He found an intriguing crack where wall met floor in a corner of the common room, which turned into a narrow little space in the walls - so narrow even Wormtail had trouble squeezing through. It twisted up and around and finally deposited him, unexpectedly, right into his own dormitory, under one of the large four-poster beds.
There was someone, or possibly two someones, on the bed,
He cautiously poked his little furry head out to check it out, sniffing the air.
There, on the bed, still fully clothed but with indications that they might not be for long, were Remus and Sirius. Snogging. Quite thoroughly.
Well.
Oddly enough, Peter realized he didn't particularly care, although he hoped it wouldn't muck up the Marauders as a group. He kind of wished Remus had trusted him enough last year to just admit to being a shirt-lifter, but he mainly just still thought that Remus should snog whoever he bloody well wanted to. Sirius didn't deserve him, but it wasn't Peter's place to judge.
Still, the experience did teach Peter one thing: being a rat was going to be fantastically useful. Bloody hell, he would know everything going on in Hogwarts!
Absolutely everything.
Year 6
Chinese Zodiac, rat: "a tendency to be quick-tempered and overly critical."
"Well, it's about that time," Remus said, pushing back his chair. "Sorry, Peter, but you'll have to work through the rest of the Arithmancy set on your own."
Peter stared balefully at the assignment. For once, his complete idiocy in a subject was not feigned - the bloody coursework was impossible. It hadn't been so bad until this year, but damn, this stuff became utterly impenetrable after OWLs! They needed it for the map, he kept telling himself, to get through it. The map needed advanced Arithmancy.
"James and Sirius will help if they ever get out of detention, I'm sure," Remus said kindly.
"Yeah," Peter said flatly. "I'm sure."
Remus patted his shoulder. "Sorry, Peter."
"Have a nice full moon," Peter sighed. He scratched the back of his neck. "I wish I could go with you, but without Sirius and James…"
"I know. The wolf thinks you're supper." Remus winced. They had found that out the hard way, when Peter went through the Willow earlier than the other two one night. He'd come out all right, of course, but it had been a little too close for comfort. Without the presence of the larger Animagi, the wolf had trouble remembering that a rat was a friend and not a snack.
"We'll try to come by once they're out of detention," Peter offered, although none of the boys were quite ready to face the wolf after it had been alone with itself for several hours. Better to be there from the transformation itself. Safer.
Remus just shook his head, smiling gently. He gave Peter a little wave and left the library.
Peter remained on for a little while, struggling through an equation. Damn James and Sirius and their incredibly inconveniently timed detentions! Okay, the prank had been fucking brilliant, but did they have to pull it on the day before a full moon? And with a whole Arithmancy problem set due? Peter sighed, giving up, and headed back to the dormitory. No Wormtail tonight. He wasn't in the mood.
*
The moon had just barely risen when Peter reached Gryffindor Tower. The other two boys in his year, Caradoc Dearborn and Benjy Fenwick, were playing wizard chess in a corner of the common room. Peter nodded a greeting and wandered over to watch for a bit. It got boring pretty quickly - both were intense players who spent several long minutes contemplating each move. Benjy's king had fallen asleep, and the pawns were taunting each other from across the board. The moves were made so gradually as to be nearly imperceptible. Peter soon gave up and went upstairs to their dormitory, nearly being mown over by a couple of first years - had he ever really been that small and bouncy? - on his way up.
He'd hardly kicked off his shoes when the door burst open and James and Sirius ran in. "Stupid - stupid - fucking brainless twat!" James was hissing.
"A fucking honest mistake!" Sirius protested. "He probably didn't even believe me, or even if he did he's sure to get it wrong anyway - where's the cloak?"
"I've got it," James said, face red with rage, "and I'm fucking going down there on my own, so don't you touch it, you inbred idiot!" He flung his invisibility cloak over his shoulders, but before hooding himself completely, he looked directly at Peter. "Bloody stupid Black pride," he said, and vanished. The door swung open for a moment, then slammed shut again.
Peter blinked. "What's going on? What was that all about? Why aren't you still in detention - you can't possibly be finished already? Flitwick will kill you. So what's happened?"
Sirius sat heavily on the edge of his bed and covered his face with his hands. "I think I just made the biggest fucking mistake in my life," he mumbled.
And somehow, Peter knew. It was like the chess game downstairs. Somehow, the pieces had been moving while he wasn't watching the game, and now - checkmate. Oh, fuck. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of his stomach, twisting it. His mouth was dry. It was hard to swallow. "Who did you tell?" he whispered.
Sirius lifted his head miserably. "Snape."
"What, exactly, did you tell him?"
Sirius ran his hand through his hair shakily - a gesture he'd picked up from Remus, Peter noted coldly. "I'm not sure," he said helplessly. "I was so angry at him, Wormtail, you don't understand - I was just saying things, I don't know, taunting him, he was so insufferable, he kept hounding me about Moony - I didn't think, I shot off something about the Willow, and the knot, but I was vague as hell, really, I don't think he'd-"
"Fuck!" Peter spat. He strode over to Sirius and yanked him up, hard. Too surprised to resist, Sirius stood. "We've got to go tell Dumbledore, now."
Sirius shrank back, wide-eyed. If he'd been in his dog form, he'd have his tail between his legs. Peter had never ordered him about before, never. "Peter…"
"You shut up," Peter snapped, feeling the cold rage within him, freezing him. His words were icy. "What the hell were you thinking? We never betray each other, never. You told me that our second year and I believed you, Sirius, I really did. But you, you don't think, you're so fucking stupid! I mean, it's Remus we're talking about, the best friend any one of us has ever had, plus you're fucking shagging him-"
"How did you know that?" Sirius blurted out, stupidly.
"I'm a goddamn rat!" Peter yelled. "You and James are the ones who send me sneaking around all the time, you should bloody well know no one can keep secrets from me!"
"Peter-"
"Dumbledore's office," Peter ordered, his voice shaking. The pure rage was fading away, and the effort of standing up to Sirius - berating him, even - ran so dramatically counter to everything Peter had become over the past six years that it was almost physically draining. Liberating, though, in a disturbing sort of way. "Let's go. Now."
*
"Wait," Sirius suddenly said, when they were halfway down the corridor to the headmaster's office. "The map."
"What about the map?" Peter demanded crossly. As his fury dissipated, his fears grew, and being frightened put him quite out of sorts - well, more so than he already was.
Sirius was fumbling with the pockets of his robes. "It can tell us if Snape is even heading down to the Willow at all."
"Good idea," Peter said bitterly. "I wish I'd thought of that. Back in the dormitory, say, before James went off on his rescue mission. It would have been useful. But we're not going back to the dorm for it now."
"No, I've got it here," Sirius said, finding it in his trouser pocket. "I was working on it a bit earlier - I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!"
The map wasn't quite finished yet. It was fully sketched out and certainly functional, but there were still a few glitches left to be worked out. For example, while the map could tell them the exact location of anyone in Hogwarts, it still wouldn't just volunteer the information. They had to ask it to show specific people - well, they could demand it to show everyone, but then the parchment would be crawling with little floating pictorial representations of every last first year and house elf in the castle, and you couldn't make out who was where. The map hadn't yet learned to distinguish the people that mattered from those who didn't. And Filch could be lurking just around the corner, but the map wouldn't divulge such vital information without being asked. James and Sirius were still hard at work on that particular problem.
But once asked, it told. "Prongs and Snape," Sirius demanded, his eyes fixed on the Whomping Willow's icon.
For a second, nothing happened, and Peter dared to hope for the best. But then little footprints tracking James Potter and Severus Snape materialized, marking their paths across the parchment. Sirius swore eloquently.
Snape was already at the Willow, but James was still several hundred meters away.
*
Dumbledore was seated in a large armchair in his office, with two smaller but lavishly cushioned chairs arranged as though he were expecting guests for tea. Peter wondered if he had somehow known they were coming, but while the man was a brilliant wizard, he still wasn't omnipotent. Or was he?
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow in bemusement as Peter and Sirius entered, but gestured welcomingly for them to seat themselves. "Well, boys, you needed to speak with me?"
Peter elbowed Sirius sharply in the ribs.
Sirius coughed and stared at his shoes. "Er, Headmaster, I think I may have made a big mistake…"
Dumbledore listened patiently as Sirius (with Peter's help) explained that they knew about Remus Lupin's condition, and how they'd found the passageway from the Willow, and then about the incident with Snape. They left out the bits about the map and being Animagi, but Peter could see that Dumbledore understood more than he let on.
"…and then James ran out to find him, and-"
"So you have endangered the lives of two of your dearest friends, as well as Severus," Dumbledore interrupted quietly. Sirius visibly wilted. "What do you expect me to do, Sirius? If it is as you say, the drama has already unfolded, and there is precious little I may do to stop it."
Sirius blanched. "But if Snape gets as far as the Shack-"
"Then he will encounter a fully grown werewolf at the peak of its hunger and rage, and if he is fortunate enough to survive the attack, there will be no cure." Dumbledore's gaze was not accusing, just sad. Somehow, that made it all the worse. As always, Dumbledore was addressing Sirius, not Peter - come to think of it, Peter couldn't remember a single occasion on which Dumbledore had spoken directly to him, rather than to his friends - but for once, Peter was glad to be left out. "And while I will do everything in my power to protect Remus from the resulting outcry, my hands will be tied in the worst possible way."
Sirius looked like he was about to cry, and Peter didn't feel much better. He clung to his anger, letting it blossom within him; it was easier to be angry. Your fault, he thought at Sirius. All your fault.
"But for now," Dumbledore said firmly, rising, "we had better go and see what damage has actually been done."
Peter and Sirius jumped to their feet, but before they had gotten much further, there was a loud knock on the door.
"Enter," Dumbledore commanded, and James burst in - dragging a very pale, angry, but unharmed Snape in with him.
"He's all right," James said unnecessarily.
Snape jerked away from James's grasp and pointed straight at Sirius with a trembling finger. "He tried to have me killed!" he announced shrilly. "He tried to murder me!"
*
Peter and Sirius waited out in the corridor while Dumbledore spoke privately with James and Snape. The hall was a bit too dark for comfort - it was after lights-out, after all - but neither bothered with so much as a Lumos to dispel the gloom. Sirius fidgeted with his wand, while Peter leaned against a wall stonily with his arms crossed in front of him. Neither spoke.
Eventually, the door opened and James came out into the hallway, pulling the door shut again behind him. "He wants to speak with Snape alone," he said grimly. "I expect he's going to try to convince him not to tell anyone about Remus, but I don't know if Snape will agree to keep quiet. Not about this."
"I could hardly blame him for talking," Peter muttered. "After all, the wolf nearly killed him." James shot him a venomous look, and Peter shrank back into the shadows.
Even in the murky dimness, Sirius looked pale. "Prongs…how close was it?"
James took off his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Very," he said shortly, putting the specs back on. "The dozy twat actually pushed up the trapdoor and went in. I had to shove him aside and change to keep the wolf back. Gave him a nice hard kick in the chest, too - the wolf, I mean, not Snape. I dragged Snape back into the passage while Remus was stunned. Hopefully, the sniveling idiot was too mad with fear to register the bloody stag materializing right in front of him."
"You kicked Moony in the chest?" Sirius asked, horrified.
"Yes, and in a few other places besides. He'll be feeling it in the morning, but what else was I supposed to do? He'd have torn Snape apart."
"Poor Moony," Sirius said softly.
"Poor Snape," Peter retorted. They ignored him, as usual. "Poor all of us. What happens now?"
No one knew, so they just kept waiting.
*
It seemed like hours, but finally Snape emerged from Dumbledore's office. He shoved past the trio without a word, and stalked down the corridor and out of sight alone, furious and silent. For once, Peter could sympathize.
"You can come back in now," Dumbledore called from his armchair, and they obeyed.
"Is Snape going to-" James started, but the headmaster cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Severus and I have reached an understanding," Dumbledore told them. "He will not speak of this incident to anyone. However, I would advise you all to avoid tormenting him in the future." He looked pointedly at Sirius, who flushed deeply and studied the carpet.
"What's going to happen to Remus?" Peter asked. What he meant was, will Remus be expelled, but Dumbledore misunderstood him - probably deliberately.
"He'll make out all right," Dumbledore said gently, "although somewhat the worse for wear, I'm afraid. Werewolves generally don't take well to being teased with the possibility of a meal."
"What do you mean by that?" Sirius demanded, stepping forward.
James put a hand on his shoulder, tugging him back. "The wolf knew Snape was there, Pads. It was pretty fucking pissed off when I stopped it-" He glanced at Dumbledore and flushed. "-sorry, Headmaster."
Dumbledore smiled faintly. "It's all right. But Sirius, I believe you should assist Madam Pomfrey when she goes to fetch Remus in the morning. It might be instructive for you to see firsthand the consequences of dangling human prey in front of a werewolf - and then snatching it away."
Sirius's face was gray. He nodded stiffly. "Yes, sir."
"Well, if that's settled, you may as well try to get some rest," Dumbledore said firmly, conjuring up some cots with a flick of his wand. "There's nothing more any of us can do for Remus until sunrise."
They all nodded dutifully, but none of them would be able to sleep.
*
"James?" Peter whispered into the semi-darkness.
"What?"
"D'you suppose Remus has really hurt himself badly this time?"
"Probably. Maybe. I don't know."
"I'm frightened."
James snorted. "You're always frightened. Trembly ickle rodent."
"But this is-"
"Shut up, Wormtail," Sirius snarled from across the room.
Peter shut up, letting that cold fury seep back into him slowly, stronger and more satisfying than fear.
*
Madam Pomfrey stopped by to fetch Sirius just after the moon faded out of sight. It was still an hour or two before dawn; there was just the barest suggestion of sunrise shedding its ghostly grey light in the eastern sky. Once they had gone, James and Peter abandoned all pretense at sleep, and hurried down to the hospital wing to wait for them. It felt like hours before they returned with Remus.
When Peter and Sirius had found Remus in the infirmary their second year, they had been shocked and a little frightened at his condition. But when Peter saw Remus being carried in by Pomfrey and Sirius, it nearly turned his stomach.
He couldn't look at Remus for long before he had to turn away. Remus looked like - well, like raw meat. "Bloody hell," James breathed, and Peter couldn't tell if that was a description of Remus's appearance or just a random oath.
"All of you, out, now," Madam Pomfrey ordered, easing Remus onto a bed. The starched white linens would never be the same, Peter thought irrelevantly. "I mean it, boys. I understand you're concerned, but if you know what's best for Remus you'll leave my infirmary at once and allow me to work on him. These wounds are very nasty."
They were too stunned to react, at first - even Sirius, who had helped bring Remus in, stood motionless by his bedside. Maybe the full impact of what he had done was finally sinking in. Then Pomfrey turned her backs on them and bent over Remus, and James gently tugged on Sirius's arm. "Come on, mate, let's go."
Sirius stumbled blindly out into the corridor. The first rays of sunlight were streaking in through the eastern windows, bathing his face in gold. Like an angel, Peter thought, except not. Fallen from grace.
"Do you think he'll ever forgive me?" Sirius mumbled pathetically, but James just clapped him on the shoulder and didn't answer.
We never betray each other, never, twelve-year-old Sirius had whispered in Peter's ear. But Sirius had been the betrayer. Sirius had betrayed Remus in the worst possible way, violated the most precious rule in the Marauder Code of Laws. If that trust could be broken, then…then nothing was sacred, after all.
Peter had forgotten, lately, that he wasn't as dull and stupid as he pretended to be, forgotten that he couldn't trust anyone with his secrets. He'd forgotten that, and trusted these three boys, his friends. Well, friends could betray you as easily as enemies - more easily, actually, because friends knew more of your secrets than anyone else. Friends knew that Peter Pettigrew was not quite a complete blithering idiot. Friends knew that Remus Lupin was a werewolf.
It was a very dull and stupid thing to do, letting your best friends betray you. Like Sirius betrayed Remus. Perhaps the way to protect yourself, then, was to…no.
What mattered now was that Remus would probably forgive Sirius, in time, because he was foolish and trusting and maybe even a little in love. But Peter couldn't make that mistake.
And although Remus would probably forgive Sirius, Peter never would.
concluded in part 3
Year 4
Chinese Zodiac, rat: "imaginative, charming, and truly generous to the person they love."
Oddly enough, Remus was the first of the Marauders to discover girls. Or, more accurately, the girls discovered him.
Logically, Peter had known that there were a fair number of girls in their year. But the full impact of all that femininity never really hit him until there were suddenly girls everywhere. A small pack of them materialized wherever the Marauders went, whispering in the corridors and tittering in the library and generally making it very difficult to do much marauding.
Initially, of course, they all assumed the attention was for Sirius and James, who strutted about accordingly. And maybe some of it was, but gradually Peter realized that most of the girls only hung around when Remus was there; they tended to disperse disappointedly when it was just the others.
Peter couldn't figure out what it was about Remus that attracted them. Remus was the tallest boy in their year, true; he'd had his big growth spurt early, but it just made him sort of awkward and lanky. He looked well enough, but he wasn't nearly as handsome as Sirius or as confident as James. And he was the quietest member of the group - in public, anyway. Peter supposed he had a sort of bookish charm, but nothing all that remarkable.
Whatever it was, none of them expected Remus to go with Melinda Bell for the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year. Or with Gwendolyn Vane to the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw quidditch match. Or with Dearborn's two years' elder sister for long walks around the lake.
Sirius finally put his foot down when it came to his cousin Cissy. "Are you mad, Remus? She's Slytherin, and my bloody cousin to boot! God, she used to run around the lawn naked when she was little."
"Shut up, Sirius," Cissy snapped before Remus managed to get any words out through his blushing and stammering. "I can go with whomever I like."
"What do you girls see in him, anyway?" Sirius whined.
Cissy tossed her pale blonde hair. "He's the only genuinely nice boy in Hogwarts," she said. "A real gentleman, unlike the rest of you lot." She wrinkled her nose elegantly. "A girl likes being treated like a lady sometimes. And there's something to be said for the strong and silent type; Remus has an air of danger to him that's incredibly sexy."
Remus's blush deepened considerably, and Cissy giggled and led him away.
"Don't worry about it, mate," James said awkwardly. "She'll drop him as soon as he tells her he's half Muggle."
Sirius snorted and didn't seem particularly consoled. "I just thought he had better taste," he muttered.
"You're not jealous, are you?" James asked. "Because he gets so many girls?"
"I'm sure loads of them fancy you two as well," Peter said, and inwardly winced at his obsequious tone. "Remus is just…more approachable."
"And if it bothers you that badly, I'm sure he'll let you have one of his castoffs," James added solemnly.
Sirius punched him in the stomach.
*
Peter was in a corner of the common room with his wand, doggedly working through the kinks of a particularly difficult charm Flitwick had assigned them. He was so engrossed in the magic - there was an odd flick of the wrist that he hadn't got quite right - that he didn't realize that Sirius was watching him.
"You know, you're not half bad at Charms," Sirius said.
Peter jerked his wand in surprise and sent the charm off to shatter against the wall.
"Or at Transfigurations," Sirius continued. "I've seen you practice on your own at night. Not that I'm complaining, mind, because we're almost ready for the next part of this whole mad Animagi idea of yours."
"Er," Peter said. Not that it would be all that terrible for his friends to find out he was actually a competent wizard, but the habit of secrecy was a hard one to break. It was nice to be underestimated all the time. Comfortable. He much preferred to hide his skills and be thought stupid than to show off. What if he revealed his true abilities, and they proved not to be all that special? What if he really wasn't particularly good at magic, and everyone saw?
"You know what your problem is?" Sirius asked. The scrutiny in his eyes made Peter uncomfortable. He hated confrontations with Sirius the most. James mainly just overlooked him, and Remus accepted him for who he was, but Sirius was…dangerous.
Peter coughed. "What's that?"
"Confidence," Sirius said firmly. "You freeze up when you know other people are watching, especially professors. You'd do all right if you could just learn to ignore them."
"Right," Peter said, and didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
Having duly meted out words of wisdom to lesser beings, Sirius went back to his book.
*
"Do you suppose we should have a chat with Remus about all his girls?" James said unexpectedly one night over a game of exploding snap.
Peter blinked as his cards exploded, singeing his hands. "Why?" He sucked on his sore fingers.
"Well, there are just so many of them."
"It does seem rather heartless of him," Sirius agreed. He glanced over at James slyly. "And he's taken to disappearing with Lily Evans in the evenings."
"Well, he should know better!" James spluttered, red-faced. "I mean, she's rude and loud and tells tales on us to McGonagall. And she's sneaky and self-righteous and-"
"And very pretty," Sirius added mischievously. "And James fancies her like mad."
"I do not!" James insisted. "I can't stand her! It's not right for Remus to consort with…with the enemy! He'll give away all our secrets!"
"Not Remus," Peter said loyally. "Don't be absurd."
"I just wish I knew where they go every night," James whined.
"He takes her to that abandoned classroom we found behind the suit of armor on the second floor," Sirius said, dealing out another round of snap. "I wanted to work on the Surprise there, but Peter wouldn't let me go in."
Peter felt his face flush. "I saw them go in earlier. I thought they should have some privacy."
"How generous of you," James grumbled. "So he's already given away one of our secrets, at least."
Sirius frowned, no longer amused. "You don't think he'd tell a girl about…"
"About his furry little problem?" James suggested sourly. "I certainly hope not."
Peter glared at them. "He's kept that a secret since he was just a little kid. We wouldn't even know if you hadn't made a lucky guess. Why can't we just trust him?"
"Him I trust," James said. "But Lily-"
"Remus can do whatever he likes with whoever he likes," Peter said stubbornly.
"God, you don't suppose they're, well, kissing in there or something?" James said, appalled. Sirius looked vaguely ill at this suggestion.
"I don't know and I don't care," Peter declared. "I don't see why he shouldn't snog her if he wants to."
For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were the slaps of cards. "Well, good for Remus," Sirius finally said, with no small amount of bitterness. It certainly didn't sound like he meant it, but James and Peter just nodded agreement and continued with the game.
*
Sirius was in a foul mood for days. He taunted Peter more than usual and was short with James, and lashed out angrily at Remus at the slightest provocation. One night, walking back from the Quidditch pitch after practice with James (also on the team) and Peter (the loyal fan), Sirius happened to run into Snivellus Snape.
Literally.
"What the hell?" Snape demanded, landing with some bewilderment in the damp grass.
"Watch where you're going, won't you," Sirius snapped. "Or does that gargantuan nose of yours impede your vision?"
Snape's eyes narrowed. He pulled himself to his feet sharply, brushing some grass off his robes with short, perfunctory movements. "I have somewhere to be," he said stiffly. "If you don't mind."
Sirius took a step towards him, crowding him. "Maybe I do mind. Where are you slinking off to, at this time of night?"
"What's it to you?"
"Oh, everything, Snivellus." Sirius's voice was dangerously silky. He slipped his hand into the pocket where he kept his wand.
Peter nudged James softly in the ribs, wondering if they should interfere before things got out of hand. But though James was also fingering his wand, he didn't make a move.
Snape looked over at them and sneered. "Just the three of you? Where's that incompetent, bookish friend of yours? He doesn't usually stray far from the pack."
It was the wrong thing to say. Sirius's wand was out and ready. "You filthy minger. Go on. Insult Remus again. I dare you."
"Touched a nerve, did I?" Snape laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. Peter could see him reaching into his robes for his own wand. "You'd make a perfectly revolting couple. Too bad he's off shagging that ginger Mudblood in the library. Or didn't you know?"
If James had ever intended to interfere, he'd changed his mind. His face was very red, clear even in the murky night.
"Keep going," Sirius hissed. "Keep going, you slimy little grindylow."
"A real enigma, your Lupin," Snape mused mockingly. "Rather gangling and awkward, isn't he? But a pretty, girlish sort of face. You like that sort of thing, don't you, Black? Your brother's told me stories-"
Peter didn't recognize the hex Sirius shot at Snape, but it wasn't pretty. Parts of Snape's skin seemed to be peeling off his body. Snape snapped out a curse that made yellow boils break out across Sirius's face. This duel was going to get very nasty, and soon.
After a few more seconds, James did finally step in and disarm them both, adding a few quick counter-hexes so that Sirius, at least, was looking more or less like normal.
"So Potter saves your arse, as usual," Snape rasped. "How fortunate for you, Black. You did a shoddy job of defending pretty Lupin's honor-"
And Sirius threw himself at Snape, knocking him over. Snape's head hit the ground with a nasty-sounding thud. Undeterred, Sirius began laying into Snape with his fists, pummeling his chest and arms with terrifying fury. Snape tried to fight back, but he was ill-equipped for a physical fight, and before too long, he was wheezing out a surrender of sorts, bleeding heavily from a gash over his eye. Sirius ignored the attempt at truce, and broke Snape's nose with sickening crunch.
James just stood by with their wands and watched as Snape was given the worst beating of his life.
It didn't take long before Peter's fear got the better of him and he ran back to the castle to fetch Madam Pomfrey. By the time they got back out on the grounds, Snape was lying in an undignified heap on the grass, badly bruised and bloody, but Sirius and James were nowhere to be found.
Torn between his conscience and his friends, Peter stammered out that he'd seen the incident from afar and didn't know who'd done it, then fled as Pomfrey got to work healing Snape.
Snape told all, of course, but as the wounds were not magically inflicted they were soon healed, and Sirius only got a few evenings in detention for it. Peter, remembering the crazed look in Sirius's eyes that night and the unrelenting assault of his fists, thought he'd gotten off far too lightly.
The Marauders never spoke of it again.
*
"Are you going out with Lily Evans?" Peter asked. He and Remus were alone at a table in the library, ostensibly working on their History of Magic essays. Sirius was still in detention, and James was probably working out a way too sneak him in some butterbeer.
Remus blanched and dropped his quill. "No. We're not."
"It's okay if you are," Peter pressed on awkwardly. "I mean, I think James fancies her and Sirius…" He faltered, remembering the Snape incident. "…well, Sirius doesn't seem to like her much, but I think it's fine. You know. She's pretty."
"She is, but we're not," Remus said, looking tired. "It's nothing like that."
"You just seem to spend a lot of time with her, instead of your other girls, so we thought-"
"Sirius and James can think what they like," Remus said flatly. "I don't really care."
"Well, if you're not, then-"
"I'm a teenaged bloke!" Remus practically shouted. Pince glared at him from her desk, and he lowered his voice. "So I hang around with girls a lot. I'm supposed to, aren't I? I'm supposed to want to be surrounded by as many girls as possible, as often as possible, right? It's normal. For once in my life, I'm perfectly normal." There was an unusual edge to his voice.
Peter frowned. "You mean you don't really fancy any of them?"
"Not particularly, no," Remus said wearily, the bite in his voice gone. "I'm just…not interested in girls right now. It's not all that important to me."
"Not even Lily?"
Remus smiled wryly. "Slughorn assigned her to help me with Remedial Potions. That's all."
A new thought occurred to Peter, a strange one. "You're not bent, are you?"
"No!" Remus said, very quickly. He ran a hand through his hair. "No," he repeated. "I just don't fancy anyone right now."
"So why didn't you just tell us that?" Peter asked. "God, you should hear the way James and Sirius talk about it," he added, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Remus sighed. "Let them talk," he said softly. "I don't mind."
Remus had never asked what might have prompted the assault on Snape. Peter wondered how much he'd guessed. Remus was far too willing to turn a blind eye when it came to Sirius. He tried to work on his essay, but couldn't think of anything to write.
"I envy you sometimes, Peter," Remus said. "You're so…ordinary."
Peter smiled and wished he knew what to say.
*
The second potion in the Animagus process was supposed to be ready on the night of a full moon. Which was rather convenient, really, since that meant there was no way Remus would stumble upon them.
"Okay, this potion is kind of creepy," James told them when they had assembled in one of the secret rooms they'd discovered while marauding. "This is the part that eventually determines the nature of our animal forms."
"What do we have to do?" Peter asked, vainly wishing that Lily was in on some secrets. She was the best at Potions in their year - well, along with Snape, who was now avoiding Sirius like the plague - and her expertise might make Peter feel a bit more confident about the effects of this concoction.
James glanced over at Sirius, who pulled something out of his robes. "We're supposed to take a silver dagger - family heirloom, this is, and bloody difficult to lift without my mum noticing - and dip it in the potion. Then, uh, we're supposed to, well, cut our hand open and drip the blood into the potion. I guess we should divide it up into three parts first. I don't want to drink any of your blood by mistake."
"And remember, it's got to be your left hand," James added. "Something about your right hand representing the part of you anyone can see, but your left revealing your secret inner self. I think it's the reverse if you're left-handed."
"How much blood do we need?"
"A fair amount," Sirius said nervously. "It's kind of dodgy, actually. If we made the potion right, then dipping the dagger in it first means the wound should heal quickly, but we won't know until we try it."
James looked pale. "At least there aren't any incantations or anything this time," he said. "And we'll be halfway to becoming Animagi once this part's finished."
They all stared at the dagger and potion.
"Someone's got to test it," Sirius finally said.
"It's your dagger," James pointed out.
"You made most of the potion," Sirius retorted.
They squabbled about it for a bit, until finally - "I'll do it," Peter said.
Sirius and James stared at him.
"It was my idea in the first place," Peter said quietly. "And it's for Remus, isn't it?"
He picked up the dagger and dipped it in his cup of potion. The liquid clung to the blade in a pale green sheen. Peter studied it for a long moment, then calmly plunged the dagger into his left palm and watched his blood seep out.
He didn't feel a thing.
Year 5
OED, rat: n. A rodent of some of the larger species of the genus Rattus.
Sometime early in their fifth year, the rumors began really penetrating the thick, protective walls of Hogwarts. They were vague - whispers of a shadowy threat, hints of strengthening Dark Magic. There were a handful of odd disappearances noted in the Daily Prophet, mainly fairly powerful wizards of pureblood families. Peter's dad's friend Rosier vanished one autumn night, and it was said that he was joining the growing Darkness. His daughter, Evan's elder sister, left Hogwarts a few days later. Sirius's aunt and uncle pulled Cissy out of school to arrange her marriage to the heir of the Malfoy family. The most frightening stories told of a nameless Dark Lord whose powers rivaled those of the infamous Grindewald.
But for the most part, few students took the rumors seriously. This was Hogwarts, after all. Nothing really bad could happen here.
*
The last stage of the transformation into Animagi was every bit as difficult as the textbooks warned, and then some. There were tongue-twisting incantations to memorize in which the slightest mispronunciation could wreck months of labor, and impossibly complex potions whose ingredients could only be collected by the dark of the new moon, and whatnot. But they got through it all, somehow, and finally, finally, in the dubious shelter of a massive oak on the edge of the Forbidden Forest on a dark and stormy night, they were ready.
The dark and stormy bit was specified in the arcane parchment; James wondered aloud in the thunder and lightning were actually critical to the spellcasting or if the original Animagus just had a flair for the dramatic. The out-of-doors bit was mandated because they had no idea what animal forms they might take, and they'd chosen the ancient oak as one of the few spots in the Forbidden Forest both close enough to the castle to be relatively safe and far enough away to remain unnoticed. Even the strangest of animals would probably not seem out of place in the Forest.
They'd rehearsed the final incantation endlessly beforehand until they could speak it in perfect unison. James's eyes were feverishly bright, and Sirius's face was gray. Peter clutched his wand with a sweaty hand.
They raised their wands.
And it was soon over, practically before they realized they'd begun.
None of the scrolls of instructions had actually explained what, exactly, would happen once the final incantation was spoken. Peter wondered if he would just suddenly transfigure into his animal shape, or if his animal would walk (swim? fly?) right up to him and start talking. Would he have to wait a while for the change to occur? Would it start affecting individual body parts one at a time, or all in one go? And how would he learn the spell to actually transform back and forth from human to animal - would the animal teach him? And for the love of all that was good and powerful, how would he find out what animal he was?
The answer, as it turned out, was simple: he just knew.
"Oh," James said softly. Sirius gazed at them both with wonder in his eyes. And Peter just laughed and laughed, joyfully and long.
As for effecting the transformation itself, it was as simple and natural as slipping into a familiar robe.
*
Rat, Peter thought, and shrunk down into rat shape. Peter, he thought, and sprang back up. Rat. Peter. Rat. Peter. And back and forth and back and forth, giddily, until he couldn't tell one form from the other.
*
During their trek back to the castle, soaking wet and exhausted and exhilaratingly happy in the dusky gray pre-dawn light, Sirius decided they needed to have code names. (Sirius had recently developed an unhealthy taste for Muggle spy novels.) He'd already affectionately dubbed Remus "Moony" their fourth year, and the nickname had stuck.
Since Peter couldn't come up with anything good for himself - "Rat," he kept repeating, firmly and contentedly - Sirius somewhat less-than-affectionately decided to call him Wormtail. That nickname stuck, too, but Peter didn't mind. Nor did he mind James's pity or Sirius's poorly contained mirth at the form his Animagus had taken.
They just didn't understand. Rats were brilliant. They were small and sneaky and could slip through cracks in walls. Peter would be able to explore Hogwarts as thoroughly as the Marauders had always dreamed, sniffing out every last secret passage and hidden nook in the castle. There was nowhere he couldn't go now, nothing he couldn't do, no secret he couldn't sniff out.
Sirius and James would be glad of his friendship now.
*
Remus was sitting alone in front of the common room fireplace when they tumbled through the porthole. He glared at them. "Where have you idiots been? Did you think I wouldn't notice you sneaking out at midnight? I bloody well ought to report you all."
"Then it's lucky for us you make a lousy prefect," Sirius said. "So shut up. We've got something fantastic to tell you."
Remus just folded his arms and looked at them, challenging.
"Look," Sirius said softly, and shifted seamlessly into his Animagus form.
"We can all do it," James burst out excitedly, as Remus gaped open-mouthed at the massive black dog capering about his feet. "I mean, me and Pete aren't dogs, but we're Animagi, too-"
"We studied for years and years-" Peter interrupted.
"It took us ages to find the ingredients for the potions-"
"I cut my hand open on Sirius's mum's heirloom-"
"The last potion tasted awful, let me tell you-"
Sirius just barked, a deep, ringing tone.
If Remus weren't already sitting, he probably would have fallen over. "How…why…?"
"We did it for you, Remus," a human Sirius said, still wiggling his rear a little as though wagging an invisible tail. "Werewolves can't hurt our animal shapes, right? We can keep you company when you change. Maybe we can even help you remember yourself."
"Sirius's Animagus is the best for that, since dogs and wolves are practically related," Peter put in - rather generously, he thought, seeing as Sirius had all but taken full credit for the whole idea. Well, the great hulking ugly puppy had done most of the actual research, he supposed.
"Yes, I expect so," Remus said in a strangled tone. "So, ah, what are your Animagi, then?"
"I'm a stag," James said proudly, " And Peter here is a rat."
"Right," Remus croaked. "Lovely creatures, rats." He cupped his head in his hands, deflating abruptly. "If anyone finds out, you're all going to be in so much trouble," he whispered, but the look in his eyes told them everything he didn't know how to say.
*
Peter shamelessly skipped all his classes the next morning in order to become accustomed to Wormtail - and the rat's advantages.
Within a few hours he had made two important discoveries. Firstly, the longer he stayed in rat form, the longer it took his thoughts to snap out of rat mode. There was a certain dark paranoia and an odd craving for peanut butter (not cheese) that lingered with him for a few minutes after shifting back to human form. Peter decided to spend a day or two over the summer entirely as a rat, and see if the ratlike side effects became more pronounced.
But secondly, and more importantly, he discovered that Hogwarts was far more extensive and fascinating than he could ever have imagined.
"You have no idea," he told James over a late lunch. The Hall was nearly empty. "I mean, the library alone has at least three different hidden passageways we didn't know about, including one that leads straight from the restricted section to the bookcase behind Pince's desk. I bet she knows about that one, right, and that's how she kept interrupting our Animagus research." He paused for a second to shovel a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. "And, oh man, I found a tunnel that goes down to the Slytherin boys' loo! Do you know how much marauding we could do in there? And then-"
"Imagine," James interrupted quietly, "if we could map it all out."
"-there's this porthole behind-" It sunk in. "What?"
"A map," James breathed. "A definitive map of Hogwarts. No, don't look at me like that, I've been thinking about this for years only I never thought we'd manage it. But now… You can really get anywhere in the castle, can't you? And Sirius and I can do the grounds, no one will look twice at a deer in the Forest or a dog near Hagrid's Hut."
Peter put his fork down. He wasn't hungry anymore. "All of Hogwarts…"
"I first thought of it second year, when Sirius and I put the tracking spell on Remus, remember? Only it never quite worked properly, because we couldn't tie it down to a really accurate map. It's bloody lucky he went in through the Willow and not some passageway inside the castle, because that map only showed a rough outline of the grounds." Peter nodded; James had never seemed entirely satisfied with the spell and crude diagram. "So I wished, then, that we could make a full map of Hogwarts, so we could run the tracking spell properly. I tried to draw one up on my own, but it was a real mess and we kept finding new tunnels and such, so I gave it up. Besides, the Animagus project was more interesting. But now…"
"We could do it," Peter said, awed. "That would be brilliant, James." And for once, he wasn't just playing up.
*
That evening, in his excitement, Peter bypassed dinner in favor of further exploration. There were all manner of crooks and tiny passageways sprinkled throughout the castle, and it would take him months to discover them all. Tonight, while everyone was at dinner, he planned to do a thorough investigation of Gryffindor Tower.
He found an intriguing crack where wall met floor in a corner of the common room, which turned into a narrow little space in the walls - so narrow even Wormtail had trouble squeezing through. It twisted up and around and finally deposited him, unexpectedly, right into his own dormitory, under one of the large four-poster beds.
There was someone, or possibly two someones, on the bed,
He cautiously poked his little furry head out to check it out, sniffing the air.
There, on the bed, still fully clothed but with indications that they might not be for long, were Remus and Sirius. Snogging. Quite thoroughly.
Well.
Oddly enough, Peter realized he didn't particularly care, although he hoped it wouldn't muck up the Marauders as a group. He kind of wished Remus had trusted him enough last year to just admit to being a shirt-lifter, but he mainly just still thought that Remus should snog whoever he bloody well wanted to. Sirius didn't deserve him, but it wasn't Peter's place to judge.
Still, the experience did teach Peter one thing: being a rat was going to be fantastically useful. Bloody hell, he would know everything going on in Hogwarts!
Absolutely everything.
Year 6
Chinese Zodiac, rat: "a tendency to be quick-tempered and overly critical."
"Well, it's about that time," Remus said, pushing back his chair. "Sorry, Peter, but you'll have to work through the rest of the Arithmancy set on your own."
Peter stared balefully at the assignment. For once, his complete idiocy in a subject was not feigned - the bloody coursework was impossible. It hadn't been so bad until this year, but damn, this stuff became utterly impenetrable after OWLs! They needed it for the map, he kept telling himself, to get through it. The map needed advanced Arithmancy.
"James and Sirius will help if they ever get out of detention, I'm sure," Remus said kindly.
"Yeah," Peter said flatly. "I'm sure."
Remus patted his shoulder. "Sorry, Peter."
"Have a nice full moon," Peter sighed. He scratched the back of his neck. "I wish I could go with you, but without Sirius and James…"
"I know. The wolf thinks you're supper." Remus winced. They had found that out the hard way, when Peter went through the Willow earlier than the other two one night. He'd come out all right, of course, but it had been a little too close for comfort. Without the presence of the larger Animagi, the wolf had trouble remembering that a rat was a friend and not a snack.
"We'll try to come by once they're out of detention," Peter offered, although none of the boys were quite ready to face the wolf after it had been alone with itself for several hours. Better to be there from the transformation itself. Safer.
Remus just shook his head, smiling gently. He gave Peter a little wave and left the library.
Peter remained on for a little while, struggling through an equation. Damn James and Sirius and their incredibly inconveniently timed detentions! Okay, the prank had been fucking brilliant, but did they have to pull it on the day before a full moon? And with a whole Arithmancy problem set due? Peter sighed, giving up, and headed back to the dormitory. No Wormtail tonight. He wasn't in the mood.
*
The moon had just barely risen when Peter reached Gryffindor Tower. The other two boys in his year, Caradoc Dearborn and Benjy Fenwick, were playing wizard chess in a corner of the common room. Peter nodded a greeting and wandered over to watch for a bit. It got boring pretty quickly - both were intense players who spent several long minutes contemplating each move. Benjy's king had fallen asleep, and the pawns were taunting each other from across the board. The moves were made so gradually as to be nearly imperceptible. Peter soon gave up and went upstairs to their dormitory, nearly being mown over by a couple of first years - had he ever really been that small and bouncy? - on his way up.
He'd hardly kicked off his shoes when the door burst open and James and Sirius ran in. "Stupid - stupid - fucking brainless twat!" James was hissing.
"A fucking honest mistake!" Sirius protested. "He probably didn't even believe me, or even if he did he's sure to get it wrong anyway - where's the cloak?"
"I've got it," James said, face red with rage, "and I'm fucking going down there on my own, so don't you touch it, you inbred idiot!" He flung his invisibility cloak over his shoulders, but before hooding himself completely, he looked directly at Peter. "Bloody stupid Black pride," he said, and vanished. The door swung open for a moment, then slammed shut again.
Peter blinked. "What's going on? What was that all about? Why aren't you still in detention - you can't possibly be finished already? Flitwick will kill you. So what's happened?"
Sirius sat heavily on the edge of his bed and covered his face with his hands. "I think I just made the biggest fucking mistake in my life," he mumbled.
And somehow, Peter knew. It was like the chess game downstairs. Somehow, the pieces had been moving while he wasn't watching the game, and now - checkmate. Oh, fuck. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of his stomach, twisting it. His mouth was dry. It was hard to swallow. "Who did you tell?" he whispered.
Sirius lifted his head miserably. "Snape."
"What, exactly, did you tell him?"
Sirius ran his hand through his hair shakily - a gesture he'd picked up from Remus, Peter noted coldly. "I'm not sure," he said helplessly. "I was so angry at him, Wormtail, you don't understand - I was just saying things, I don't know, taunting him, he was so insufferable, he kept hounding me about Moony - I didn't think, I shot off something about the Willow, and the knot, but I was vague as hell, really, I don't think he'd-"
"Fuck!" Peter spat. He strode over to Sirius and yanked him up, hard. Too surprised to resist, Sirius stood. "We've got to go tell Dumbledore, now."
Sirius shrank back, wide-eyed. If he'd been in his dog form, he'd have his tail between his legs. Peter had never ordered him about before, never. "Peter…"
"You shut up," Peter snapped, feeling the cold rage within him, freezing him. His words were icy. "What the hell were you thinking? We never betray each other, never. You told me that our second year and I believed you, Sirius, I really did. But you, you don't think, you're so fucking stupid! I mean, it's Remus we're talking about, the best friend any one of us has ever had, plus you're fucking shagging him-"
"How did you know that?" Sirius blurted out, stupidly.
"I'm a goddamn rat!" Peter yelled. "You and James are the ones who send me sneaking around all the time, you should bloody well know no one can keep secrets from me!"
"Peter-"
"Dumbledore's office," Peter ordered, his voice shaking. The pure rage was fading away, and the effort of standing up to Sirius - berating him, even - ran so dramatically counter to everything Peter had become over the past six years that it was almost physically draining. Liberating, though, in a disturbing sort of way. "Let's go. Now."
*
"Wait," Sirius suddenly said, when they were halfway down the corridor to the headmaster's office. "The map."
"What about the map?" Peter demanded crossly. As his fury dissipated, his fears grew, and being frightened put him quite out of sorts - well, more so than he already was.
Sirius was fumbling with the pockets of his robes. "It can tell us if Snape is even heading down to the Willow at all."
"Good idea," Peter said bitterly. "I wish I'd thought of that. Back in the dormitory, say, before James went off on his rescue mission. It would have been useful. But we're not going back to the dorm for it now."
"No, I've got it here," Sirius said, finding it in his trouser pocket. "I was working on it a bit earlier - I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!"
The map wasn't quite finished yet. It was fully sketched out and certainly functional, but there were still a few glitches left to be worked out. For example, while the map could tell them the exact location of anyone in Hogwarts, it still wouldn't just volunteer the information. They had to ask it to show specific people - well, they could demand it to show everyone, but then the parchment would be crawling with little floating pictorial representations of every last first year and house elf in the castle, and you couldn't make out who was where. The map hadn't yet learned to distinguish the people that mattered from those who didn't. And Filch could be lurking just around the corner, but the map wouldn't divulge such vital information without being asked. James and Sirius were still hard at work on that particular problem.
But once asked, it told. "Prongs and Snape," Sirius demanded, his eyes fixed on the Whomping Willow's icon.
For a second, nothing happened, and Peter dared to hope for the best. But then little footprints tracking James Potter and Severus Snape materialized, marking their paths across the parchment. Sirius swore eloquently.
Snape was already at the Willow, but James was still several hundred meters away.
*
Dumbledore was seated in a large armchair in his office, with two smaller but lavishly cushioned chairs arranged as though he were expecting guests for tea. Peter wondered if he had somehow known they were coming, but while the man was a brilliant wizard, he still wasn't omnipotent. Or was he?
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow in bemusement as Peter and Sirius entered, but gestured welcomingly for them to seat themselves. "Well, boys, you needed to speak with me?"
Peter elbowed Sirius sharply in the ribs.
Sirius coughed and stared at his shoes. "Er, Headmaster, I think I may have made a big mistake…"
Dumbledore listened patiently as Sirius (with Peter's help) explained that they knew about Remus Lupin's condition, and how they'd found the passageway from the Willow, and then about the incident with Snape. They left out the bits about the map and being Animagi, but Peter could see that Dumbledore understood more than he let on.
"…and then James ran out to find him, and-"
"So you have endangered the lives of two of your dearest friends, as well as Severus," Dumbledore interrupted quietly. Sirius visibly wilted. "What do you expect me to do, Sirius? If it is as you say, the drama has already unfolded, and there is precious little I may do to stop it."
Sirius blanched. "But if Snape gets as far as the Shack-"
"Then he will encounter a fully grown werewolf at the peak of its hunger and rage, and if he is fortunate enough to survive the attack, there will be no cure." Dumbledore's gaze was not accusing, just sad. Somehow, that made it all the worse. As always, Dumbledore was addressing Sirius, not Peter - come to think of it, Peter couldn't remember a single occasion on which Dumbledore had spoken directly to him, rather than to his friends - but for once, Peter was glad to be left out. "And while I will do everything in my power to protect Remus from the resulting outcry, my hands will be tied in the worst possible way."
Sirius looked like he was about to cry, and Peter didn't feel much better. He clung to his anger, letting it blossom within him; it was easier to be angry. Your fault, he thought at Sirius. All your fault.
"But for now," Dumbledore said firmly, rising, "we had better go and see what damage has actually been done."
Peter and Sirius jumped to their feet, but before they had gotten much further, there was a loud knock on the door.
"Enter," Dumbledore commanded, and James burst in - dragging a very pale, angry, but unharmed Snape in with him.
"He's all right," James said unnecessarily.
Snape jerked away from James's grasp and pointed straight at Sirius with a trembling finger. "He tried to have me killed!" he announced shrilly. "He tried to murder me!"
*
Peter and Sirius waited out in the corridor while Dumbledore spoke privately with James and Snape. The hall was a bit too dark for comfort - it was after lights-out, after all - but neither bothered with so much as a Lumos to dispel the gloom. Sirius fidgeted with his wand, while Peter leaned against a wall stonily with his arms crossed in front of him. Neither spoke.
Eventually, the door opened and James came out into the hallway, pulling the door shut again behind him. "He wants to speak with Snape alone," he said grimly. "I expect he's going to try to convince him not to tell anyone about Remus, but I don't know if Snape will agree to keep quiet. Not about this."
"I could hardly blame him for talking," Peter muttered. "After all, the wolf nearly killed him." James shot him a venomous look, and Peter shrank back into the shadows.
Even in the murky dimness, Sirius looked pale. "Prongs…how close was it?"
James took off his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Very," he said shortly, putting the specs back on. "The dozy twat actually pushed up the trapdoor and went in. I had to shove him aside and change to keep the wolf back. Gave him a nice hard kick in the chest, too - the wolf, I mean, not Snape. I dragged Snape back into the passage while Remus was stunned. Hopefully, the sniveling idiot was too mad with fear to register the bloody stag materializing right in front of him."
"You kicked Moony in the chest?" Sirius asked, horrified.
"Yes, and in a few other places besides. He'll be feeling it in the morning, but what else was I supposed to do? He'd have torn Snape apart."
"Poor Moony," Sirius said softly.
"Poor Snape," Peter retorted. They ignored him, as usual. "Poor all of us. What happens now?"
No one knew, so they just kept waiting.
*
It seemed like hours, but finally Snape emerged from Dumbledore's office. He shoved past the trio without a word, and stalked down the corridor and out of sight alone, furious and silent. For once, Peter could sympathize.
"You can come back in now," Dumbledore called from his armchair, and they obeyed.
"Is Snape going to-" James started, but the headmaster cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Severus and I have reached an understanding," Dumbledore told them. "He will not speak of this incident to anyone. However, I would advise you all to avoid tormenting him in the future." He looked pointedly at Sirius, who flushed deeply and studied the carpet.
"What's going to happen to Remus?" Peter asked. What he meant was, will Remus be expelled, but Dumbledore misunderstood him - probably deliberately.
"He'll make out all right," Dumbledore said gently, "although somewhat the worse for wear, I'm afraid. Werewolves generally don't take well to being teased with the possibility of a meal."
"What do you mean by that?" Sirius demanded, stepping forward.
James put a hand on his shoulder, tugging him back. "The wolf knew Snape was there, Pads. It was pretty fucking pissed off when I stopped it-" He glanced at Dumbledore and flushed. "-sorry, Headmaster."
Dumbledore smiled faintly. "It's all right. But Sirius, I believe you should assist Madam Pomfrey when she goes to fetch Remus in the morning. It might be instructive for you to see firsthand the consequences of dangling human prey in front of a werewolf - and then snatching it away."
Sirius's face was gray. He nodded stiffly. "Yes, sir."
"Well, if that's settled, you may as well try to get some rest," Dumbledore said firmly, conjuring up some cots with a flick of his wand. "There's nothing more any of us can do for Remus until sunrise."
They all nodded dutifully, but none of them would be able to sleep.
*
"James?" Peter whispered into the semi-darkness.
"What?"
"D'you suppose Remus has really hurt himself badly this time?"
"Probably. Maybe. I don't know."
"I'm frightened."
James snorted. "You're always frightened. Trembly ickle rodent."
"But this is-"
"Shut up, Wormtail," Sirius snarled from across the room.
Peter shut up, letting that cold fury seep back into him slowly, stronger and more satisfying than fear.
*
Madam Pomfrey stopped by to fetch Sirius just after the moon faded out of sight. It was still an hour or two before dawn; there was just the barest suggestion of sunrise shedding its ghostly grey light in the eastern sky. Once they had gone, James and Peter abandoned all pretense at sleep, and hurried down to the hospital wing to wait for them. It felt like hours before they returned with Remus.
When Peter and Sirius had found Remus in the infirmary their second year, they had been shocked and a little frightened at his condition. But when Peter saw Remus being carried in by Pomfrey and Sirius, it nearly turned his stomach.
He couldn't look at Remus for long before he had to turn away. Remus looked like - well, like raw meat. "Bloody hell," James breathed, and Peter couldn't tell if that was a description of Remus's appearance or just a random oath.
"All of you, out, now," Madam Pomfrey ordered, easing Remus onto a bed. The starched white linens would never be the same, Peter thought irrelevantly. "I mean it, boys. I understand you're concerned, but if you know what's best for Remus you'll leave my infirmary at once and allow me to work on him. These wounds are very nasty."
They were too stunned to react, at first - even Sirius, who had helped bring Remus in, stood motionless by his bedside. Maybe the full impact of what he had done was finally sinking in. Then Pomfrey turned her backs on them and bent over Remus, and James gently tugged on Sirius's arm. "Come on, mate, let's go."
Sirius stumbled blindly out into the corridor. The first rays of sunlight were streaking in through the eastern windows, bathing his face in gold. Like an angel, Peter thought, except not. Fallen from grace.
"Do you think he'll ever forgive me?" Sirius mumbled pathetically, but James just clapped him on the shoulder and didn't answer.
We never betray each other, never, twelve-year-old Sirius had whispered in Peter's ear. But Sirius had been the betrayer. Sirius had betrayed Remus in the worst possible way, violated the most precious rule in the Marauder Code of Laws. If that trust could be broken, then…then nothing was sacred, after all.
Peter had forgotten, lately, that he wasn't as dull and stupid as he pretended to be, forgotten that he couldn't trust anyone with his secrets. He'd forgotten that, and trusted these three boys, his friends. Well, friends could betray you as easily as enemies - more easily, actually, because friends knew more of your secrets than anyone else. Friends knew that Peter Pettigrew was not quite a complete blithering idiot. Friends knew that Remus Lupin was a werewolf.
It was a very dull and stupid thing to do, letting your best friends betray you. Like Sirius betrayed Remus. Perhaps the way to protect yourself, then, was to…no.
What mattered now was that Remus would probably forgive Sirius, in time, because he was foolish and trusting and maybe even a little in love. But Peter couldn't make that mistake.
And although Remus would probably forgive Sirius, Peter never would.
concluded in part 3