Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognised. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Minor swearing, reference to mental illness including eating disorders, mentions of homophobia.
Chapter One
The first of September was unusually warm, though the weather was a little unsettled: scattered showers of rain fell across London every now and then. At half past ten in the morning, King's Cross Station was a little more crowded than it usually was at that time on a Tuesday- by then, most work commuters into the city had finished their daily journeys in the morning rush hour. Families with preteen children littered the station; most making their way to platforms nine and ten together, though others were saying their goodbyes in slightly less crowded areas.
Eleven-year-old Peter sat alone in a carriage on a scarlet steam engine, an unusual sight tucked away from the eyes of muggles. The platform he had boarded from- number nine and three quarters- was full of families saying their last goodbyes before their children left for school. The only other students who had already boarded the Hogwarts Express were the older ones, who were used to saying goodbye to their families. Peter's fellow first years all seemed to still be on the platform, hugging their parents as they received last-minute advice. Peter had been sitting on board the train for two hours already- his mother commuted into London via King's Cross each morning for work, so they had made the 45 minute journey from their home together. Peter hated the fact that his mother hadn't been able to get the morning off from her boss- it simply wasn't fair that he was the only first-year to have so little time to say goodbye. Oh, well, he thought. It was almost eleven o'clock, so it wouldn't be too long before the other first years started boarding the train.
From the door of his otherwise empty compartment, someone cleared their throat. Peter looked up from the window, into the grey eyes of a tall red-haired boy. The boy seemed to be flanked by two others, a boy and a girl with matching dark hair and blue eyes.
"Do you, um, mind if we sit here?" the red-haired boy asked in a thick Irish accent.
Peter shook his head, straightening up in his seat, "No! That's fine." he said. He was desperate to make some friends, and these three seemed nice enough, if their warm smiles were anything to go by.
"Thanks. I'm Kieron McNamara, this is Shannon and Eoin Harte," the red-haired boy said. "What's your name?"
"I'm Peter. Peter Pettigrew," Peter said. "Pleased to meet you."
"Pleased to meet you, too!" the dark-haired boy, Eoin, said, smiling as he stuck his hand out for Peter to shake.
"How far did you have to travel to get here, Peter?" Kieron asked, leaning forward on his seat.
"Oh, not far. 45 minutes. My mum does it every day," Peter replied. He knew that he was lucky, at least, to have had such a short journey to the station. "What about you?"
"We came by Portkey last week, stayed in a muggle hotel nearby. We're from Cork," Kieron said. "My little sisters are loving it. Our families are staying in London until Sunday evening. Saoirse and Caoimhe haven't been around so many wizarding families at once before: they stayed home with our mother when my older sister started, 'cause they were so young."
"Our ma's just happy to get hammered in some of the bars she went to when she was younger." Shannon said, and Eoin nodded, laughing.
Peter glanced out of the window, and was surprised to see that the platform was almost entirely devoid of students- all that remained were parents and small siblings. There was one family that still seemed to be saying goodbye- two girls and a boy, all about the same height, were hugging a middle-aged woman as an older man tried to usher the children towards the train. The boy gave the woman one final hug, tilting himself up on his toes to kiss his mother on the cheek. Peter felt a pang of jealousy in his chest at the sight as he watched the taller of the two girls through her arm around the boy's shoulders and guide him onto the train.
"Peter, you okay?" Peter's eyes snapped up to meet Kieron's. "Missing your family?" Peter gave a small smile.
"My dad works nights, so I didn't get to say goodbye to him before we left this morning, and our train to here was delayed so I barely got to say anything to my mum." he murmured. With a soft sigh, Kieron stood up and moved to the seat next to Peter. He placed a hand on Peter's leg and smiled at him.
"That sucks. But remember, it's only fourteen weeks until the Christmas holidays, and you can write to them as much as you want," Kieron said kindly. "Plus, my dad said that sharing a dorm is like having a load of brothers. He still meets up with his old dorm mates every week for a drink and a catch-up. That's how I know Shan and Eoin: our dads were in the same dorm at Hogwarts." Peter smiled gratefully at Kieron.
"Thanks. I hope the people in my dorm like me." he said. Shannon laughed, but a sharp glare from Eoin shut her up.
"Course they will," Eoin said. "What house are you hoping to be in, anyway? We're all hoping for Ravenclaw." Peter paused for a moment and frowned, thinking. What house did he want to be in? He'd love to be in Ravenclaw, like his mother and with his new friends, but he knew he hadn't the brains for it. He'd never been particularly brave, either, and he definitely didn't think he would fit in Slytherin. It would have to be Hufflepuff, because there was no way he would make friends anywhere else.
"I think… I'd like to be in Hufflepuff," Peter said. "I'd be happy with anything but Slytherin, though." Kieron laughed.
"Yeah. Reckon my ma'd kill me if I ended up in Slytherin. Her brother was a Slytherin, and he wound up wandless in a muggle prison after getting caught selling illegal drugs to kids at the local Comprehensive." he said. Peter's eyes widened with shock. He'd never known someone as open and friendly as Kieron, and he certainly wouldn't have been so quick and confident to tell an almost-stranger about a criminal relative.
At that moment, the train groaned into action with a scream of the steam pipe. Kieron yawned widely, his eyes watering.
"I'm gonna try and sleep a bit. Wake me up when the snack trolley comes." he said, shifting along the seat and leaning against the wall.
"Sure thing." Eoin said, and Kieron closed his eyes, smiling.
"I'm going to find someone else to sit with. Meet new people." Shannon said, standing up and walking out. With a roll of his eyes, Eoin stood up and shut the door behind her.
"I swear, that girl's never closed a door in her life." he said, sitting back down.
From that moment on, neither Peter nor Eoin spoke for several hours. The silence was awkward, to say the least, but Peter had never really been much good at talking to people.
Finally, the door opened, and one of the girls Peter had seen in the final family on the platform looked in on them, worry in her eyes.
"Um, hi. Have either of you seen a girl about my height, with short brown hair and glasses? She's had a fight with our friend and run off somewhere." she said. Peter shook his head, and Eoin shrugged.
"No, sorry," Eoin said. "What's your name? If we see her, we'll let her know you're looking for her." The girl smiled half-heartedly.
"I'm Vera. Do you- do you mind if I sit here for a minute or two? I've just run the length of the train twice, so I'm a little tired." she said. Peter nodded.
"That's fine with us," Eoin said. "I'm Eoin, and this is Peter. The sleeper's Kieron." Vera smiled and sat down.
"Thanks," she said. "So did you guys know each other already?" Peter shook his head.
"Eoin and Kieron did, but I don't know anyone." he said. Vera smiled sadly at him.
"That sounds lonely, but I'm sure you'll make friends soon. Everyone I've met so far has been nice. I couldn't imagine coming by myself, though, without Nona or Jamie or Becky," she said. "The four of us grew up in the same village, but Becky moved away a couple of months ago. Today's the first time we've seen her since, but Nona's really upset at her for some reason. It's weird. I don't think I've ever seen Nona get angry before."
"I saw three of you on the platform, just before the train left. I thought you were triplets or something." Peter said, trying not to sound as jealous as he was. He desperately wished he'd had some friends to come with, or had even just known anyone else before coming.
Vera laughed, "People say that a lot, especially since we look kinda similar, too. Jamie's mum's super nice; she treats us all like we're her own kids," she said. She glanced at her watch. "Wow, we've been on the train three and a half hours already. We must be about halfway there by now. I should probably get back to looking for Nona- she's probably crying on a baggage rack somewhere." With that, she stood up.
"Bye. Hope you find her." Eoin said.
"Thanks. I'll talk to you guys again. Hopefully, we'll all be in the same house." Vera said, smiling brightly, her steely grey eyes half-closing under her long lashes. She bounced on her toes as she opened the door, before leaving. Unlike Shannon, Vera closed the door behind her.
"She seems nice, like she'd be a good friend." Eoin said. Peter nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. She's putting loads of effort into finding her friend- Nona, did she say?" he said, and Eoin nodded.
"I hope everyone's as nice as Vera said. I'd hate to have people in my dorm I don't get on with," he said. "It's hard enough sharing a room with my sister when we're at home; I want to be comfortable when I'm not sharing with her." Peter raised his eyebrows. As an only child, he'd never had to share a room with anyone before.
"At least you have practice sharing a room- I don't have any brothers or sisters, and I've never been to a sleepover, either." he confessed. Eoin grimaced.
"Gonna be a bit of a culture shock, mate. You better hope no one snores, it'll be months before you can sleep through it." he said with a light laugh. Peter laughed, too, smiling a little. He really hoped that he would be in the same house as Eoin and Kieron, since they were both so nice.
A yawn overtook Peter, then, and Eoin smiled at him.
"Tired? I'll wake you up when the snack trolley comes, if you wanna get some sleep." he said.
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry." Peter said, smiling gratefully. He'd had very little sleep the night before, because he was so nervous and excited about starting Hogwarts, so he wanted to get as much as possible then. He'd heard from his mother that students tended to stay up quite late on the first night, as the first years got to know their new dorm mates and older students shared stories of their summers. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat.
When Peter woke up, it was to gentle shaking. He opened his eyes with a yawn to see Eoin looking down at him.
"We're almost there. A prefect just stopped in to tell us to get our robes on." he said, his blue eyes shining brightly. Immediately, Peter was sitting bolt upright.
"Oh! Okay, thanks for waking me!" he said. He glanced across at Kieron, but quickly looked away again when he realised than Kieron was almost completely naked. Kieron let out a bark of laughter.
"You'll have to get used to seeing people in their underwear. My big sis said that her dorm all sleep naked," he said. "Bit weird if you ask me, but they've been together six years so they're really close friends. Must be the best way to make friends; trial by fire, and all."
"Yeah, it must be," Peter said. "I hope I'm in the same house as you guys- you're the first wizards my age I've met."
Kieron nodded, "Yeah, that would be great. Doesn't matter if we're not, though- we can still be friends. We can work together in classes we share, and we can hang out at weekends. I mean, I'd prefer to be with my friends, but I wouldn't mind being apart from them. That way, we can have some time away from each other if we have an argument." Kieron seemed to focus on Eoin as he said the last part. Peter smiled. He'd managed to make two friends already, something he'd never done before. Even at the muggle primary school he'd attended, he'd been quite solitary- he'd never been confident or good-looking or smart or funny like the popular kids, so he'd never made any friends.
Peter took his robes out of his bag and put them on. He had come wearing most of the uniform, but kept the cloak in his bag. The rest of the uniform looked enough like a normal muggle school uniform that he just looked like a regular student on his way to school, but the cloak would have given him away.
The train pulled to a stop, and the jolt it gave as it did so made Peter fall back onto the seat. Kieron laughed, smiling as he offered Peter a hand. Peter took Kieron's hand and stood back up.
"Thanks." he said as Kieron let go. Kieron grinned.
"No problem! This is so exciting. It's actually starting to feel really, really real!" he said, his face completely overtaken with his cheerful smile. The three boys laughed as they left their compartment, following the other students off the train and onto the tired-looking platform of Hogsmeade station.
The boys followed the other first years- made obvious by the fact that their robes had not yet differentiated into house colours- to where a large man (bigger than any Peter had seen before) was calling the first years to come to him. Peter could see Vera, sandwiched between two other girls who she held onto, including the one Peter had seen alongside her at the station in London.
"Looks like Vera sorted out the argument Nona and the other girl had." he said, pointing towards the three girls.
"Yeah. That's good." Eoin said, smiling.
"Who's Vera?" Kieron asked. Peter had forgotten that Kieron had been asleep when Vera was with them. As the boys walked, Peter and Eoin told Kieron about their earlier conversation with Vera. By the time they'd finished, they had reached the pier on which their fellow first years were crowded. The massive man smiled down at them all.
"Come on, then, you lot. No more 'an four to a boat." he said, holding out his hand to a small blonde girl as she struggled to step into the boat. The boys moved forward, Kieron confidently stepping into a boat before helping across Eoin and then Peter.
"Hey," Kieron called out across the pier, standing up. You want to come in ours'? There's room for one more." Peter looked up and saw who Kieron was addressing. It was a boy a little taller than average height, with pale, clammy skin, bloodshot eyes and cheeks that looked less chubby and more swollen. The boy nodded, unsmiling, and stepped across into the boat, almost falling as he did so. Kieron caught him and held him upright, and the two sat down.
"Thanks." the boy murmured, his voice barely opening to let out his torn, gravelly voice.
"No problem, always happy to help. Oh, there's Shan. Looks like she's found some friends." Kieron said, pointing. Peter followed his line of sight and saw Shannon, alongside two girls and a boy who all looked extremely confident and a little snooty.
"Ugh. Is that Hannah she's with? Guess we know which house they're headed to." Eoin said. Kieron punched him playfully.
"Don't be an eejit. There's nothing wrong with Slytherin; it just attracts some of the wrong sorts." he said. The fourth boy in their boat gave a smile so small that Peter wasn't even sure it was a smile.
"What house do you want to be in?" Peter asked the boy. "I'm Peter, by the way."
"I'm Rabastan," the boy said. "I want to be in Slytherin, like the rest of my family, but… I'm not sure I'll make it. I'll probably end up in Hufflepuff or something." Kieron's face took on a soft, pitying expression.
"Does it really matter which house you're in?" he asked. "Sure, it's great to carry on a tradition, but if that's not the best house for you, then it's not the house you should be in. You'll make friends wherever you are. And you're hoping for Hufflepuff, aren't you, Peter?" Peter nodded.
"Yeah. Maybe we could be friends? If we're both in Hufflepuff, we'll be sharing a dorm." he said. The boats started moving, and Rabastan gave a small smile, though he glanced nervously at the water.
"Yeah. I think I'd like that," he said quietly, almost sadly. "My- my family care a lot about what house I'm in, though. We're one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight." Peter's eyes widened. He was glad now that he hadn't said his surname. Rabastan seemed nice enough, but would he still be if he knew that Peter's father was a muggle?
"That must be awful, having all those expectations put on you. I'm lucky- my family are purebloods, but my parents don't care whether I marry a witch or a muggle," Kieron said sympathetically. "Honestly, I think my parents would prefer me to marry a muggle, widen the gene pool and all that. Eoin's ma's a muggle, so I know my parents don't have anything against them." Rabastan stared wide-eyed at Eoin.
"You're a half-blood?" he asked him, recoiling slightly. Peter tried not to let his disappointment show. Rabastan had seemed nice, and Peter had been looking forward to becoming friends with him. Now, his enthusiasm had waned. If Rabastan found out that Peter wasn't a pureblood, he wouldn't want to be his friend.
From the front of the boat, Kieron gasped.
"Guys, I can see the castle!" he said. He was right; the castle was starting to come into view. Peter was glad; the excitement it brought gave an excuse to end the conversation on blood purity. As he watched their view of the castle get clearer and clearer, his eyes widened and his heart began to speed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so excited. Peter could vaguely hear the gasps of awe and excitement from the students in other boats, but he was too enraptured to understand any words that were said.
It wasn't until he heard a loud splash, followed by a shriek of laughter, that Peter took his eyes off the castle. He looked across and saw that a boatful of boys had capsized. The four boys, including the one that had been on platform nine and three quarters with Vera, were struggling to get back into their boat, and three of the four seemed to be enjoying their dip in the lake an awful lot, if their laughter and broad grins were anything to go by.
"At least one of them will end up in Gryffindor, bet you anything." Kieron said. Eoin snorted.
"All of them will, I'd say. Even the one who didn't laugh looks pretty tough to me." he said. It was true- the only boy from the capsized boat who hadn't laughed looked like the stereotypically silent, stoic type, the sort who could only be expected to fit in Gryffindor. Honestly, Peter was a little intimidated by them, even from that distance.
There was a soft thud as the boats hit the shore. They were there! Eoin was first out of their boat, then Kieron. Peter wobbled as he stood, neither steady nor confident when on anything other than solid ground. He accepted Kieron's offer of help to disembark gratefully.
"Woah, you okay?" Kieron asked from behind him. Peter turned and saw that Rabastan's legs seemed to have given way beneath him. Kieron's grey eyes were filled with worry as he looked at him. Rabastan's hands trembled slightly and he gave a weak half-smile.
"Yeah, just went dizzy for a moment," he said. "I have low blood pressure."
"I have some salty caramel if you want it," Eoin said, shoving his hand deep into his pocket and pulling out several wrapped sweets. "Salt increases blood pressure, right? 'Cause it's hydrophilic." Rabastan smiled gratefully and reached out a shaking hand to take a sweet. The boys began to walk, then, in the direction that the other first years were going.
"You're such a nerd, Eoin. Who even knows stuff like that?" Kieron said, laughing lightly. "Which book was it in?"
"The Encyclopaedia of Basic Biology. I brought it with me, I'll lend it to you, if you like," Eoin replied. The group had come to a standstill. "And if I'm a nerd, what does that make you?"
"It makes me happy, because you're admitting that you're way too into your books," Kieron said. "But yeah, I'd love to read it."
The group was moving again; the large man (Hagrid, Peter thought he'd heard someone say) had opened the door and the first years began to pile into Hogwarts's entrance hall. Peter could hear Hagrid's voice, but couldn't make out the words from the back of the crowd. Being quite short, he was also unable to see who Hagrid was talking to. It didn't help, of course, that Kieron, who was about twenty centimetres taller than Peter, was standing directly in front of him.
Again, the group started to move, following a figure Peter couldn't see through the entrance hall and into a small room to the side of it. Now that the group was positioned differently, Peter could see that the one who had been leading them was a woman who appeared to be around forty years old, with sleek black hair pulled into a neat bun.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," said the woman. "As many of you may know, I am Professor McGonagall. In a few moments, you will be sorted into your houses before the rest of the student body, before the start-of-term feast begins." She then proceeded to explain the house system, but Peter didn't pay too much attention; he'd already heard it all from his mother, and at that moment in time he was more focused on the weight pressing against his side. Rabastan was leaning on him slightly, though Peter wasn't sure the other had realised. He looked as though he could collapse at any moment. Peter glanced over his shoulder and saw that Kieron had a hand reached out, millimetres from Rabastan's back, as if to catch him if he fell. Kieron met Peter's eyes and grimaced slightly. Peter gave a small smile in response, before turning back to the front.
Peter hadn't noticed her stop speaking, but Professor McGonagall was leaving the room just as he turned his head. The moment she was out of the door, a ripple of excited chatter bubbled throughout the room. Peter lifted his hand and gently touched Rabastan's shoulder.
"Are you okay?" he asked. Rabastan nodded slowly.
"Mm. Fine. I just…" he said. "I'm nervous, about the sorting." Neither Kieron nor Eoin looked convinced.
"You sure? You've been getting paler and paler since we got on the boat." Eoin said. "You look like you're about to puke." Rabastan winced, paling even further.
Kieron sighed, "D'you think you can make it through the feast? I'll take you to the hospital wing after," he said. "Or I could try and get Professor McGonagall's attention when she gets back, tell her you're feeling ill."
"I said I'm fine. Would you please just stop talking at me?" Rabastan spat, pulling away from the hand Kieron tried to place on his arm.
Kieron didn't respond, because Professor McGonagall came back in, then.
"We're ready for you now," she said. "Form a line and follow me." As she led the group out of the room, the group's shape changed from a blob to a line, two or three abreast. Rabastan dropped back to slot into a different part of the group, away from Peter and the others. There were murmurs rippling through the group as they walked through.
The group entered the Great Hall, trailing behind Professor McGonagall. The first years gave a collective gasp as they beheld the hall's magnificence, unlike almost anything they'd seen before.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Most of the chapters will probably be shorter than this; it's actually the longest single chapter I've ever written. I've written a Marauders fic before, on my old account, so none of the canon characters should be too OOC. I thought I'd go with something different in terms of perspective, as I haven't seen many fics from Peter's viewpoint, especially about their school days. I've also put in heavy doses of headcanons, as so little is known about the personalities of most of the named characters who went to school with the Marauders, and it's highly unlikely that the Death Eaters would have been 'evil' from age 11 (if you want to debate this, please PM me, I love debating and talking headcanons and character development from a psychological perspective). Of course, there will be a lot of OCs, as without them, it would seem as though there were only about ten students in the Marauders' year. This fic will mostly be centred on the relationships and the developments and maturation of their personalities, rather than an action-filled plot, so I would suggest that anyone who's looking for something plot-heavy finds something else. I would love it if you reviewed and told me what you thought. If you notice any grammatical errors, please let me know so that I can fix them. Sorry that this A/N is so long, they won't usually be. If you have any headcanons you would like to see included, or any suggestions for scenes, let me know and I'll do my best to include them! Also, as next chapter will contain the sorting, I will apologise in advance for a potentially horrendous sorting hat song. Lyric writing and poetry are not things I've ever been good at. Thanks again. ~Z