A Non-Issue : 7spells [G: Peter Pettigrew]
Title: A Non-Issue
Character(s): Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Ebony Taradash [OC]
Prompt: The Cruelest Month
Rating: G
Word Count: 467
Summary: Peter always hated September because September meant school...
Author's Notes: *bows head* I hope everyone can forgive me for mangling Eliot.
September is the cruelest month,
breeding contempt from children returning to school,
mixing memory and dread,
stirring dull aches with renewed malice.
Peter hated school. He always had. When you’re short, fat, slow, and quiet, you become an instant target. There wasn’t a day in his grade school years that he didn’t come home muddy, bleeding, crying, or some mixture of the three.
His mother said he was always assaulted by the other boys because they didn’t understand him, that he was a silent intellectual, a dreamer, and his need for approval tended to give people a reason to give him exactly the opposite. His father said he was just weak and was going to get eaten alive, especially at Hogwarts, if he didn’t learn to defend himself in a proper fashion.
Peter had spent the whole train ride smashed up against one of the compartment windows with a bunch of second and third years who wouldn’t stop glaring at him. It had took every ounce of strength in his body to keep from bursting into tears right then and there. When the first years had been shuffled down into the boats, he’d been stuck with two boys about twice his size. Evan and Davey. Not that they had told him that, but Peter had found in grade school that if someone kept their mouth shut and ears open when they were a non-issue to everyone around, they learned quite a bit.
Evan had shoved him in the dirt when they’d gotten out of the boats. He’d almost been willing just to lay there, not even bother to go into the school. This wasn’t any different than muggle grade school. Everybody hated him without even knowing him.
“Are you all right?”
He thought he’d dreamed it at first, but when a probing digit had found its way in between his ribs, he’d been startled into action. His eyes had shot up, meeting two sets, blue and amber-brown.
“Well, he’s alive,” the female of the two said, sparing a grin at the boy as she tucked an arm under Peter’s arm and pulling him to his feet.
Peter shrugged, “That’s a debatable matter.”
“Save your existential angst for when we have time,” The boy said, offering Peter a lopsided, tired smile. “I think we’re suppose to be up there,” he said, motioning towards where the large group of first years were being herded into the castle.
Peter frowned, glancing back along the shore. There were a few more stragglers, so he didn’t feel quite so awkward as he looked up at the boy and girl, nodding. He was greeted by two smiles and two arms hooking into his as the three of them took off towards the entrance of the castle. Maybe September wasn’t so bad after all.