© Ariana Veelagrace and Clara Maplewood, year 2000-2001



Disclaimer: I own Alice Pettigrew, Esmerelda, Joella, and anybody else who isn't in the Harry Potter series.


Why The Rat Crawled

Chapter 1

 


I was an okay guy for a while. A little bit of a geek, sure. Slightly annoying, absolutely. But evil? Nah, not at first.

That came later.

I was born to a really old wizarding family. Decent people, never the kind of people you'd expect to be mixed up with Voldemort. We lived right next door to the Longbottom family, me and my little sister Alice used to visit their house and play with Frank, who was a year older than Alice and a year younger than me. It was kind of depressing sometimes, because Alice and Frank always played "two" games, games for just two kids, and I always got left out. Alice never really liked me, and that was just fine with me, cos I didn't really like her, either. My mum was a formidable, muscular woman who always wore this ugly green dress with a red handbag. My dad was kind of short and heavy with a round face.

To the other side of our house was a huge old brick relic that everyone simply called "The Hall." Alice and Frank were convinced that it was haunted, and dared each other back and forth to go explore it. I'm not so sure that it was the house that they were afraid of so much as its residents: The Snapes.

The Snapes were as old a wizarding family as ours, but with not half as decent a history. Every Snape ever born was in Slytherin, with the exception of one cousin or uncle somewhere who nobody ever spoke of without blushing deeply. Mum and Dad always told us to stay away from the Hall, which was easy for me. The Snapes had a kid who was about my age...Severus, I think his name was. Yes, Severus Snape. If I had to pick one jerk in my life who messed it up, it's Severus Snape. But that's later.

"Hey, Peter!" Frank poked me with a long stick. "Hey, I dare you to go ring the doorbell to the Hall!"

I lifted one shoulder by way of a shrug. "Ahduhwanna."

Alice giggled. "What was that, Peter? I didn't hear you."

"I said, I duhwanna." I didn't like this kind of thing, even though both of them were younger than me and I could've easily kicked their butts if I had wanted to. They were ganging up on me, and it wasn't fair! Why couldn't they just leave me to my sandcastle and moat?

"Chicken! Bawk bawk bawk!" Alice started flapping her arms like wings and making chicken noises at me. Of course, Frank joined in immediately, as he always did.

I ground my teeth together and felt heat rise in my cheeks. "Stop it!"  They didn't stop! Completely disregarding my sandcastle, which was only half-built, I ran into my house and up the stairs to the strongest person I knew at the time...my teddy bear.


Every day, Alice and Frank dared me within an inch of my life to enter the Hall. Every day, I wound up running up to my teddy bear, or my Uncle Algie. Uncle Algie was my mum's brother, and he was really strong. I knew that he'd keep me safe, even if he was angry at me.  Anyways, I was on his side, and nobody wanted to mess with him.  It was a good deal, in my eyes anyway.

The days cycled on, never really changing much, except for the seasons.  In winter, they dared me while we were playing blocks. It all changed when I went to the local preschool, called "Tiny Hats." My mum bought me a little toy wand and a hat. It was the happiest day of my life!

I walked in, holding my mum's big hand and staring down at my clumsy little feet, trying to negotiate the staircase. A smiling witch met us at the doorway of a room full of other kids my age. "Hello," she said. "What's your name?"

"Peter," I mumbled, looking around at the four tables and the other kids, who were already forming little cliques. "What's yours?"

"I'm Esmerelda, but you can call me Ezzie. That's Joella. If that's too hard, call her Jolly. You can put your broomstick in that little cubby, and go play with the other kids, okay?"

"Okay." I reached up and hugged my mum. "Bye."

"Bye, sweetie." She waved and walked back out the door to the outside world.

I put my broomstick in the cubby and took one step forward before another kid pushed past, bursting in like he owned the place. From the smile on his face, you could have sworn he did. "Sorry! Hey, didn't catch your name. I'm Sirius, who are you?" He extended his hand, still grinning wisecrackingly.

"Um...Peter." I reached out to shake his hand, but soon drew it back in shock. Sirius roared with laughter.

"I can't believe you fell for that!" He held up his hand to show that he had a cheap Muggle buzzer concealed in it. "It's the oldest trick in the book!"

I raised my shoulder in a shrug. "I've never really heard of it."

Sirius smiled and nodded approvingly, throwing his arm around my shoulders in a very buddy-buddy way. "You're okay, Peter!"

"Thanks, I think."

"Hey, have you seen anyone here who's kinda tall, black hair, glasses, answers to the name of James Potter?"

"Er...I just got here."

"What a coincidence! Me, too!"

"Yeah, I know." I gave a nervous chuckle. Preschool was going to be great, I knew already.

Sirius suddenly jumped up on top of one of the tables and called out, "Hi, everyone! For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sirius Black, and I'm looking for a friend of mine. He's not nearly as adorable as me, but at least he doesn't deny it. His name's James, James Potter.  Anyone seen him?"

All the kids giggled. One of them yelled up, "Siwius? You'we cwazy!"

"Thanks!" Sirius bellowed. "Is James here?"

A tall boy with black, messy hair and glasses that had been mended with masking tape stepped forward. "That's me! Hi, Sirius!"

Sirius jumped down from the table. "Hihi! Oh, yeah, sorry about that little cheese thingy last week. I really didn't think it was going to explode, honest!"

"Ah, that's okay. Who's he?" James jerked a finger towards Peter.

"It's Peter Pettigrew. I bumped into him on my way in."

"Neat. Hi, Peter, I'm James...oh, no! He's here!" James wasn't looking at me anymore, but over my shoulder. I turned around to see who he was looking at. Severus Snape had just entered.

Severus walked over to us and didn't even say "excuse me" when he bumped into me. Sirius balled his little hands into fists and crossed his arms, shouting after Severus. "You have a big ugly nose!"

Ya know, looking back at that first day of preschool when Sirius defended me like that, I wonder what I would have done if someone had come up to me and told me about my future. That I would follow Severus's bad advice, that I would frame Sirius for my own murder, and that I would all but kill James myself. I don't think I would've believed it.



To be continued......