"Oh, fuck. That's good."
"Yeah?"
"Shut up—aah, Prongs!"
There they are! Peter thinks, scurrying back to the door behind which he'd heard their voices. He hasn't seen James and Sirius since the morning, and they'd gone and missed Transfiguration and so Professor McGonagall had commanded him to find them or they'd face the punishment of cleaning out the Hospital Wing bedpans. Fucking bedpans! He thanks his amazing hearing that he heard them speaking inside that broom cupboard—no one else could've, and then they'd have been lost to the world and later traumatised at the Hospital Wing. Peter is a bloody saviour.
Peter nudges open the door. "Prongs, Padfoot, thank goodness, I've been looking for you all over—" he begins, only to abruptly freeze.
"You didn't lock the door, James!" Sirius almost shouts.
James yells back, "I thought you did! Merlin, Padfoot, you fucking idiot, don't you do it all the time?"
Peter wants dearly to speak, but he remains frozen; not in shock, for, of course, the wand-less Full Body-Bind Curse comes as naturally to James and Sirius as breathing… and as kissing, which they had been thoroughly occupied in before Peter interrupted them.
"Well, fuck!" Sirius says, hastily pulling his shirt back on.
There is much flustered buttoning of shirts and wrapping of robes before either of them deign to look at the invader of their privacy. Peter swears he hears a snort whistle through Sirius's nose at the sight of Peter à la plank but Sirius's face is carefully smooth with years of practice.
"Oh, Wormtail," James sighs. "Why did you come in? Didn't you hear us?"
His hearing is something of a legend in their tiny group; more than once has Peter been used as lookout for the great pranks the Marauders carry out.
"Are you going to say the counter-curse or shall I?" Sirius asks. James looks at him. Peter remains motionless.
All three people in the snug broom cupboard very well know that Sirius could've got it done in the jiffy he takes to ask the question.
James sighs again. "It'll wear off in a while by itself, yeah?"
Peter's eyes widen, the one part of him that is allowed movement. Dickheads!
"Consider it punishment for interrupting us," Sirius says, the two of them walking past him, out into the corridor, where not one curious onlooker has stopped to see what is going on. James and Sirius shouting have that effect on people.
Peter considers it a small revenge when James and Sirius turn up that evening smelling like Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
What a terrible day he's had, Peter thinks, as he sleepily makes his way back to Gryffindor Tower. First, Remus had been too busy recovering from the previous night's full moon to help him with the Potions essay; then Slughorn had, in that sickeningly disappointed voice of his, expressed his concerns over Peter's Potions career to the whole class. The icing on top of the cake was Mary MacDonald accidentally shoving him into a mountain of mashed potato at dinner and all the Slytherins laughing loudly as a result. At least James and Sirius'd got back at them later, putting up a whole bog right before the entrance to the Slytherin dungeons, which even Slughorn had a hard time mopping up. The double detention all but one of the Marauders got as a result of tripping Snape into the mud was more than worth it. Terrible day overall, though.
He falls asleep on Remus's bed as soon as he gets one foot in the dormitory. Prongs and Padfoot couldn't be far behind.
Midnight brings with it no one, however, and Peter jerks awake to an empty room. Where are they? And why didn't they take Peter along with them wherever they'd gone? Abandoning all thoughts of a restful sleep and peaceful day tomorrow, he slips out of bed (it is Remus's, which is why Peter's nostrils were struggling to handle all the cinnamon—Remus uses it far too liberally to mask the stench of the Firewhiskey the four inhale weekly). Maybe he'll visit Remus in the Hospital Wing, it isn't like Remus is going to be sleeping with the ache of his transformations, and maybe he can tell Peter why James and Sirius are acting so shifty.
There's a secret passageway behind one of the large tapestries, which will get Peter straight to the Hospital Wing without needing to turn any corners and risk Peeves finding (and pissing on) him. Peter slips behind the tapestry (oddly enough, it features a large moving dragon with a tendency to breathe fire straight at the viewer, which means its head and most of its body is hidden behind large comical licks of fabric fire), and sets off in the dark, unwilling to light his wand just in case the passageway isn't all that secret and he meets a prowling teacher to punish him with even more detention.
In hindsight, he really should have lit his wand, or made more noise walking along the corridor, for he bumps squarely into a warm body in what are possibly the last moments of his life. The person he's bumped into screams. A third person Peter hadn't known about screams. Peter screams the loudest.
A moment later:
"Wormtail, you fucking—"
James and Sirius?
Two wands flare, illuminating to Peter very nicely the thoroughly-snogged, stunned faces of James Potter and Sirius Black.
Peter feels every pursuing protest leach from him and Prongs and Padfoot, as all three hear the unmistakable footsteps of Argus Filch emanating from the dragon tapestry.
The two wands are quickly snuffed out. Three curfew-breaking miscreants make the unanimous decision to make a run for it.
If Remus Lupin gets back to the Gryffindor dorms the next morning to his friends yawning and falling asleep standing and Peter flushing whenever he looks James or Sirius's way, he wisely refrains from asking any questions… just yet.
When Peter tells him about the times he's seen James and Sirius sucking face, Remus almost spits out his pumpkin juice. The two boys in question are absent at dinner, having been caught in the process of sticking Snape's underpants, Snape attached to them, to the Quidditch goalposts.
"They're not snogging!"
"Remus, trust me, they are—"
"You'd think we'd know if they were, Peter," Remus begins, but Peter speaks over him.
"They cursed me the first time I found them at it and didn't even bother to undo it!"
Remus pauses.
"Well, that does sound like something they'd do to you, but that doesn't mean—"
"Remus—"
"I just find it hard to believe they'd be kissing each other. I mean, I thought James's been mad for Lily Evans forever—"
"Apparently not! All I know is that they snog. Frequently."
"All right," Remus muses (remuses, Peter thinks, because musing is something Remus does a lot), "let's say what you're saying is the truth. Why should it matter?"
Peter almost drowns his face in his stew.
"It matters because somehow, I'm the only one that seems to walk in on them and I would much rather it be you next time—"
"Or, Peter," Remus interrupts conclusively, "you could just start being more careful about which broom closets you choose to go into and which corridors you break curfew in."
"I did both for the sake of you lot! Why am I friends with you again?" Peter asks miserably.
Remus shrugs. "We do your homework sometimes and make you look cool."
Peter can't even argue with that.
They part ways after dinner, Remus to go to the library and Peter to go back to the dorms and try and get some sleep.
"Rex Hedgehog," he says to the Fat Lady.
"No," she says, folding her arms. "The password changed this morning."
"I wasn't around when it did."
The Fat Lady looks nonplussed. "What's your point?"
"You're learning too much colloquial language from us students."
"So?"
"Sounds very incongruous is all."
"Password, or you're sleeping on the cold stone floor tonight."
"I mean, you do know I show up here every day and no one in their right minds would use me for their Polyjuice Potion even on pain of death?"
The Fat Lady considers this.
"Hmph," she concedes.
"What's the new password then?"
"Your prefect ought to have told you this morning. And Isn't the Head Boy one of your best friends? The Potter boy?"
"Oh, stop swooning, that's revolting—right, of course I know what the password is, I just love wasting my time flirting with you instead of going straight in to my bed to get some shut-eye."
The Fat Lady (Peter's named her Aetheldreda for the horror value, but only in his head as he suspects she won't take to this imposed denomination kindly) looks faintly disgusted at the thought of Peter flirting with her. Peter does not blame her.
"All right," she says, sighing and swinging open. "The new password is Dingus Malleardis, and don't you dare tell another soul."
"Why not, everyone should know how great you are at coming up with new passwords," Peter says, clambering in. "I'm a Slytherin, by the way. Cheers!"
She swings back too quickly for Peter to hear any of the expletives she's doubtless flinging at him.
Even the stairs are a massive obstacle for Peter, so tired he is that his legs won't move. He crawls up them anyway, the thought of his warm bed the only thing keeping him going.
Yes. Finally there. He gets himself to his feet and places a hand on the door to the room housing his bed.
People often talk about an eerie sense of foreboding washing over them moments before something happens in front of them that scars them for life. They carry on to say that in retrospect, they should've listened to their instinct, that primal intuition that had wisely told them to step the fuck back and do anything but what they did, now look what they've gone and done. They say they're never the same, and if only, if only they had heeded their gut feeling.
Nothing like that happens to Peter, because he is just never that lucky.
He pushes the door open, gapes for a second, then dashes from the dormitory to the library in record time (James doesn't even get his pants back on).
"We have a problem," James announces, sitting down in front of Peter at the Herbology greenhouse. Remus looks curiously at the two of them.
"Really," Peter mutters, not in the mood to grovel at James's feet that day.
"Yes," Sirius snaps, joining James.
Peter swats the Venomous Tentacula away (Remus swats it next and it withers pathetically) and goes back to the diagram he's sketching. "Do go on."
"Well—"
"You see—"
"This has really got to stop," James says. Peter is unimpressed.
"Really," he says.
"There's obviously a curse on you, some kind that makes you walk in on people expressing their love and attraction to each other," Sirius says. "No other reason why you'd keep finding us like that all the time."
Remus quietly chokes on his spit, but carries on sketching.
"Have you considered the fact that maybe it's because the two of you are shameless tarts with an inclination for dogging?"
Remus hides his face in his notebook, fooling no one (his shoulders are having their very own earthquake).
"Dog—" James splutters. "That time in the secret corridor, was that public?"
"I actually thought you were putting on a show for all those portraits pretending to be asleep."
"WHAT—"
"Prongs, I'll handle this, go drink some water. Peter."
"Sirius."
The Venomous Tentacula makes another daring attempt at Peter's fingers, and is slapped away. Sirius watches this, bemused. Peter rather likes the brazen insouciance he's adopted in response to being traumatised by his best friends so frequently; any other day he would've gratefully offered up his Animagus self to the Tentacula for irreverent consumption.
"Peter, really, don't you think it's getting to be a bit much?"
"What, exactly? I've been obvious about my dislike for seeing James's cock since the very beginning, all right?"
"James's cock is divine—and not the point. We have to come to an arrangement." Sirius runs a hand through his silky hair in consternation. Peter tracks the movement hungrily, his own coarse hair wilting in jealousy.
"Thank you for stating what shouldn't have needed to be stated," he says.
"What will it take for you to stop ruining our snogs all the time?"
Peter draws up. "Oh, do you not keep going after I'm gone?"
"After seeing your mug? Can't get it up again."
"Rude," Peter mutters, rolling his eyes. Sirius jostles him amiably. "C'mon, mate, really."
"Look, I'll try. But you've got to stop doing it where there's every chance other people will find you!"
"Thanks, we will," James says, back from his drinking water venture, looking quite soppily at Sirius, who beams back ("Could you be any more in love," Remus mutters, finally participating in the conversation).
"Promise, Pete." Sirius transfers his beam to Peter, and then turns to kiss James noisily.
True to form, they don't stop. Peter didn't really expect them to, and anyway, they're building up immunity to him by now (that time in the hippogriff enclosure, they didn't even pause; not to worry, Peter got back at them by sitting down with a Pumpkin Pasty and watching cheerfully until they shot him dirty glares and left).
It's possible Peter's building up his own immunity to them, too—or maybe it's the Shield Charm he puts up nowadays wherever he goes.
One of these days, he tells himself, they'll stop; either when Remus is the unlucky bastard walking in on the two of them going at it, or when Peter puts everyone off sex forever by launching himself into the fray.
(He's betting on the second one.)
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